Sendai
By M. Zephyr

Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 is a trademark of Rumiko Takahashi and VIZ Communications, and its characters have been borrowed without permission. This story was written for non-commercial purposes only.

Ranma x Akane. See the bottom of Chapter 1 for an author's note dealing with the entirety of this story.

Chapter 8. School Begins

On the first day of classes at Masamune High School, Akane and Ranma showed up well before the first bell in their new uniforms. They walked in together, hand-in-hand, and were not met by anyone attempting to challenge either of them. By the time that they took seats beside one another in their classroom, they were in agreement that this felt like a very weird way to start the day. They were also aware that they were both the recipients of quite a number of appreciative or envious looks, depending on the gender of the one looking and which of the pair they were looking at.

Akane was further amazed that Ranma actually managed to stay awake in all of his morning classes, and even seemed to be paying attention. His head did start to nod a little shortly before the bell for lunch, but he smiled apologetically to Akane when she poked him, and returned his attention to the teacher.

Back in Nerima, the office at Furinkan High School had been deluged by requests for the identity of the school to which Saotome-san and Tendo-san had transferred. Shampoo, Kodachi, Sasuke, Soun Tendo, and even Nabiki Tendo either came by or called for that purpose. Shampoo showed up first, loudly and menacingly demanding the information. The poor secretary became very frazzled because the data were not in the files where they were supposed to be and, although she could remember mailing the records to some high school somewhere, she could not for the life of her remember the name of the high school or where it was located. As Shampoo became more demanding, the nervous secretary pretended to remember the name, and made one up to satisfy the Amazon. When the Chinese girl departed, the woman breathed a sigh of relief and made herself a restorative cup of tea. Unfortunately, just as she was lifting the tea to her lips, Kodachi Kuno appeared and insisted on being given the same information, causing the secretary to spill the tea all over her desk and driving the name she had given to Shampoo right out of her head. Since Kodachi's father was the principal of the high school, the woman was well aware of how insane the young gymnast could be, and quickly gave her the name of a prestigious high school from another ward of Tokyo. After that, it was one after another, with no time for the agitated woman to regain her equilibrium. She gave each petitioner the name of a different school.

Ukyo didn't even bother to make inquiries about Ranma's disappearance. She had spent the long, empty Sunday growing more and more depressed, slowly realizing how badly she had gone wrong in her attempts to win the boy's love. As she entered the classroom, she looked at the desks where Akane and Ranma would have been sitting had they been here, only to see them occupied by other students. This brought a fresh stab of pain, the more so as no one else even seemed to notice. It seemed that life insisted on going on, despite her pain, as unstoppable as the ocean waves against which she once had trained. Ukyo contemplated, once again, trying to find where the pair had gone and going to confront them, and once again decided against doing so. What, after all, would she say if she did find them? The only thing that she could think of was to beat Ranma senseless with her spatula, and it just didn't feel like it was worth it. The only bright spot she noticed was that Tatewaki Kuno had graduated last year, so that everyone was spared his speeches before school and during lunch.

Ukyo pondered what she would do now. ‹Perhaps it's time to give the Panda another beating for screwing up my life? That might cheer me up some.›

When lunchtime arrived, Akane and Ranma headed outside to eat. At Akane's suggestion they sat down under different trees, not too far apart but clearly not sitting together. She was concerned that if they sat together, the other students might choose to leave them alone out of respect for their privacy, which would hinder their ability to make friends at the new school. After a rebellious moment Ranma had agreed, and the strategy paid off as a couple of boys wandered over to sit by Ranma, and three girls sat in a circle with Akane.

Under the tree with Ranma, one of the boys glanced back toward the girls and then asked, "You're new here aren't you? You and Akane Tendo both? It looks like the two of you are a couple, right?"

Ranma replied proudly, "Yeah, Akane and I just moved here from Nerima a few weeks back. We've been dating for a while now, so we were real happy when we found out that we could both move here rather than being separated."

The other boy asked with an inquisitive leer, "So are you two living with separate people, or are you actually living in the same house?"

Ranma looked pained at the suggestiveness in his tone. "Well, I'm sure we couldn't hide it for long, so I'll admit we're living in the same place. But anybody that suggests anything improper because of that is going to find out that it was a mistake to get me angry."

The boy gave him a look of mock horror, but there was a note of warning in his voice as well when he replied. "Oh, you got a black belt or something? I should warn you, we've got a couple of hot shot martial artists at this school, and they like people to know how good they are."

Ranma smirked. "With my arrival, the best martial artist in this city is me. And Akane is the second best."

The other two boys both rolled their eyes skyward. "Get a load of the ego this guy has. With a mouth like that you'd better be prepared to defend that claim."

"Oh I am. Anytime." His voice held unshakable confidence.

They went on to compare and contrast Nerima with Sendai, Furinkan with Masamune, their favorite manga and anime series, girls they had dated or would like to date, and similar matters of interest. The gazes of all three frequently drifted toward the group of girls sitting nearby.

Meanwhile those girls were grilling Akane pretty thoroughly, while casting longing looks Ranma's way from under their lashes. Akane was beginning to wonder if their main purpose was to gather information on her fiancé. They all pouted when told that she and Ranma were sharing an apartment.

"So, you and Saotome-kun must be pretty serious about one another if you're living together, huh?" one of them inquired, while giving the impression that she wished that the answer could be negative.

Akane fondly looked over to where Ranma was sitting, inhaling his lunch. "Yeah, we are pretty serious," she admitted, "but don't get the wrong impression. We're living with a family friend, and we have separate bedrooms. We haven't done anything beyond kissing, although I have to admit that that's pretty nice." She blushed slightly.

A girl with a long ponytail stared at her in wonder. "Wow, you're living under the same roof with a hunk like that and all you've done is kiss? Man, I don't think I could restrain myself nearly as well."

Akane sighed, remembering a dream she had the previous night in which she didn't restrain herself at all. She searched for the words to explain. "We've both had some unfortunate relationship experiences in the past. We want to take things slowly, and not risk screwing things up."

One of the girls, a little more tactful than the others and sensing the awkwardness which Akane was feeling, changed the subject. "Well, are you planning on joining any clubs here? I'm in the drama club myself; it's a lot of fun. We were thinking of doing a play by Shakespeare this term, 'Romeo and Juliet.' It's a tragedy about two lovers who are kept apart by their families."

Akane blanched. "No, I'm afraid that I won't have time for any clubs. Ranma and I both have to work after school to help pay our living expenses; our parents aren't contributing anything. We also spend a good bit of time each day in our martial arts training. The little bit of spare time left over after that will have to be spent on schoolwork."

The girl to Akane's right made a face as if she had bitten into something disgusting. "That sucks. It sounds like you won't have time for any fun at all."

Akane smiled. "To me, martial arts training is fun. I can't think of another way that I'd prefer to spend my time, despite the bruises." Her new friends just shook their heads in incomprehension over this strange point of view.

After leaving school for the day, Ukyo went in search of Genma Saotome in the hope of lifting her spirits with a little mayhem, but was doomed to disappointment. His wife Nodoka had threatened him with her sword and kicked him out of the front gate with his pack, telling him not to return until he had found their son and potential daughter-in-law. Genma decided to start by checking out the various dojos and retreats throughout Japan where he and his son had stayed during their ten year training trip. He thought it likely that Ranma would flee to someplace familiar where the people might remember him generously. Even if he hadn't, this plan at least had the merit of removing Genma far from Nodoka and the reach of her lethally sharp blade. As a matter of fact Genma's thought was not a bad one, as this idea had briefly crossed Ranma's mind before he thought of Tofu Ono, but it would of course accomplish nothing as matters now stood.

Shortly thereafter Nodoka Saotome moved back into her own home, leaving Soun Tendo living entirely alone for the first time in many years. He made calls to various people he knew around the country, to ask them to keep their ears out for any information about the children, but did not hold out much hope for success from this. He found himself spending many quiet hours in his house, thinking back over the last couple of years, rereading time and again the letter from his daughter Kasumi. He was beginning to recognize, now that it was too late, many of the mistakes he had made and could no longer correct.

Shampoo had paid a visit to the school whose name had been given to her by the Furinkan secretary, spending a day terrorizing the faculty, staff, and student body. All of the people she interrogated had insisted that they had never heard of a Ranma Saotome, nor an Akane Tendo, and they never wanted to either. When she had returned to Nerima, angry and confused, she had spoken to her great-grandmother and expressed her determination to go back every day until she found her airen. Cologne had squashed the idea.

"If you spent the entire day there without hearing a word of him," the elder told her, "then obviously you were on a false trail. There is no point in wasting your time continuing down it; you should wait for the reports from the people I have contacted. In the meantime, this café does not run itself. Get out there and tend to our customers!"

As Cologne had informed Shampoo, she had contacted a number of people across the countryside, having them check up on schools and otherwise looking for information. On the other hand, she had not told those people to attach any special priority to finding this information. She, alone among those searching, had thought to investigate Doctor Tofu's replacement in Nerima, and the gynecologist used by Akane and Kasumi Tendo, in an attempt to determine if their medical records had been sent anywhere. Neither of these inquiries bore fruit, since Doctor Tofu had kept copies of his own medical records and therefore did not need copies from his replacement, and the gynecologist had kept his word and said nothing about personally handing copies of the files to Tofu when he was in Tokyo. So even though Cologne arranged to have a check made on whether either doctor had mailed the records anywhere, no such evidence was uncovered since no records had been mailed.

Since Cologne continued to insist that she needed Shampoo's help with the restaurant, the latter was not permitted to go roaming across the countryside seeking her airen. Shampoo grew very frustrated as she waited for one of her great-grandmother's contacts to get back in touch with them. Mousse, despite his infatuation with her, was learning to stay out of her sight as much as possible, due to her tendency to take out those frustrations on him.

On another front, Sasuke was also growing quite frustrated. He was having absolutely no luck in tracking down the targets of his master's and mistress' obsessions, and they were making their displeasure known in physically unpleasant fashions. Having no other leads, he had taken to trailing Nabiki Tendo hoping that she knew more than she had said and would eventually lead him to the ones he sought. For her part, she knew that he was following her, but chose to be amused by it, and furthered her amusement by sending him down false trails. Nabiki allowed him to learn of letters or phone calls she made to places selected at random, which he then felt compelled to investigate. As an exercise in satisfying her own curiosity, and only during those times when Sasuke was off on wild goose chases, Nabiki also tried to locate her sisters and potential brother-in-law, exercising methods which would cost her little since she did not intend to profit from the information. So far, however, she had uncovered nothing, and had to admit herself impressed that they apparently had not been careless in their plans.

A couple of weeks passed with no problems, and Akane and Ranma were beginning to feel comfortable in their new school, and with the other students. Then at the end of one school day, Akane was standing out in front waiting for Ranma, so that they could head off together to work. She saw a boy approaching her, and recognized him as one of the better martial artists at the school, who was in the same classroom as Akane and Ranma most of the day.

"Hello Tendo-san, may I speak with you?"

"Certainly, Morishita-san. What can I do for you?" she asked politely.

"I was wondering if you would be free this Friday night to go to a movie with me?"

The corners of Akane's smile turned down. She had thought that she and Ranma had made it clear that they were together. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her fiancé emerging from the door of the school. "I am sorry, Morishita-san, but Saotome-san is my boyfriend. I am not interested in dating anyone else."

"Oh, but Tendo-san, you can do much better than him. For one thing, I can assure you that I am a much better martial artist than he is. I am, after all, a second dan black belt." He said this last quite proudly.

Akane was unimpressed, and spoke coldly. "How good you may or may not be at martial arts is of no importance in such matters. Saotome-san and I are a couple. Please leave me alone."

She turned away from the boy and toward Ranma, putting a smile back on her face for him. The boy Morishita reached out and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her back.

"You really don't want to say 'no' to me, Akane-chan."

Lightning flashed in the depths of her brown eyes. A moment later he was flat on his back, gasping for breath with a diaphragm which was failing to obey his commands to breathe, and a bad sprain in the wrist which had grabbed her arm. There was a loud snicker nearby, and the boy looked up to see Ranma gazing down upon him with dancing eyes.

"Trouble, Akane?"

"No trouble at all, Ranma. Just a minor pest who imagines himself to have some skill at martial arts."

"Ah. Well, shall we be going? We need to catch our bus."

So saying he reached out and took Akane's arm. Stepping across the boy's body, he walked beside his fiancée out through the gate. The wheezing boy looked at his departing back with hate-filled eyes.

The next morning, Akane and Ranma walked in through the school gates to find Morishita standing in the schoolyard waiting for them. They both sighed, heavily.

"Saotome! You will pay for laughing at me yesterday! I am going to show everybody right now who is the more skilled of the two of us!"

Akane covered her mouth with her hand to hide the grin which suddenly broke out there, but Ranma was unable to prevent himself from chuckling out loud.

"Morishita-san, you really don't want to do this. I've faced far worse than you, more times than I care to remember. I advise you to swallow your pride and leave Akane and I alone in future."

"What's the matter? Are you too scared to fight, you little eunuch?"

Ranma just shook his head, and walked toward the other boy. This confused the latter somewhat, but did not distract him from his goal. As Ranma came within range, Morishita snapped out a perfect kick to the side of Ranma's head. He was shocked when the foot did not connect, and he felt his other leg being swept out from underneath him. A sudden blow to the middle of his chest caused him to fly backward through the air for three meters, where he then landed unconscious.

Ranma walked back and took Akane's hand while the other students who were present just stared at him. Together they walked around the unconscious boy and into the school.

"Let's just hope he's not as delusional as Kuno, and learns his lesson," Akane said. Ranma only nodded.

At lunchtime Ranma looked up with a scowl to see Morishita striding toward him, with three allies apparently cut from the same mold.

"Saotome! We're going to teach you a lesson, right now!"

Ranma stood up and snorted. "Aw, go home to your mama, Morishita!"

Off to the side, the girls sitting with Akane looked toward her to see what she would do. They were amazed to see that she was merely watching the unfolding drama, with a somewhat bored expression.

"Akane, aren't you worried? That's four-to-one odds against your boyfriend."

"There's nothing to worry about. After all, Ranma won't cripple them or anything. He's far too good."

The four boys attacked simultaneously, for all the good that it did them. The fight was over half a minute later, with all four of them stretched out on the ground, groaning. There was a limit, however, to how easy Ranma could go on them, since all four of them did admittedly have some skill at fighting. Consequently, one of the boys ended up with a fractured femur, and Morishita was clenching his teeth at the pain from a dislocated shoulder.

Akane turned to the other girls. "Could one of you go get the school nurse? And someone else go to the office and tell them that at least a couple of boys out here are going to need medical attention? The rest of you please stick around so that the school officials can get a straight story on who started this mess."

With that she climbed to her own feet, and walked over to Ranma.

"You okay, Ranma?" she whispered.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied, equally quietly. "I just wish we didn't have to put up with this kind of thing everywhere we go. I also wish they hadn't come at me all at once like that. I would have much preferred not having to injure anyone. I hope the principal isn't going to yell at me about this."

"I'm sure he'll understand, Ranma, once he hears the facts about what happened. You didn't start it, and if you'd been trying to be vicious, their injuries would have been a lot more extensive."

"Yeah, I suppose. I just wish ..."

"Ranma, please. While they're not at our level, these guys aren't exactly unskilled. You can't afford to hold back too much in circumstances like that, or you risk getting injured yourself. I don't want you running that kind of risk, and all-in-all I think they got off pretty lightly."

"Okay, okay. Oop, here they all come. Let's get ready to face the music."

The principal was not amused by their story, but after collecting reports from all of the witnesses, he did agree that Ranma had shown restraint under the circumstances.

A couple of days later, Akane went back inside from lunch early in order to get an assignment out of her locker which she had forgotten to bring to a class that morning. She was suddenly aware of the presence of Morishita and his two friends who hadn't suffered bone fractures, in the otherwise empty hall. A fierce look settled on her face.

"Well, Akane-chan, it looks like Saotome isn't around at the moment, eh?"

"I'd advise the three of you to get the hell away from me, right now. I've dealt with perverts like you before, in much larger numbers than this!"

The three boys chuckled nastily, and moved in toward her. She waited until they reached the appropriate distance, and then changed from immobility to furious attack in less than the blink of an eye. If Ranma had dealt with them two days previously with the precision of a surgical scalpel, this was more like facing a raging buzzsaw. Morishita ended up with a broken jaw, broken nose, and torn knee ligaments. Another boy had a concussion and a broken leg. The third boy escaped with only a couple of cracked ribs, but was also clutching himself between his legs in a world of pain from the kick which had connected in that location.

Akane stood there, barely breathing hard, looking down with loathing. A couple of teachers rushed up, having been alerted by the screams of pain.

"What is going on here?"

"I'm sorry, sensei," Akane responded demurely, hiding the seething emotions underneath. "These boys decided to attack me. Apparently they neglected to take into consideration that I am also a martial artist, or that my own skill level might be much higher than theirs."

One of the teachers ran back down the hall to call for medical aid. He returned shortly thereafter followed by the principal and a couple of other teachers. Some students also started to drift in, attracted by the commotion. Principal Bansui took charge.

"You, please keep those students back. You, stay here with these boys until the paramedics arrive. Tendo-san, please return to the office with me. Fujito-san, please go find Saotome-san and ask him to come by my office as well."

He turned and strode back down the hall toward the offices, followed by Akane. In her opinion, he seemed to be rather agitated. ‹I wonder why,› she thought distractedly, ‹after all I punished them far less than they deserved.› A few minutes later he was sitting behind his desk, facing Akane and Ranma who were standing in front of the desk looking back toward him.

"This is the second time in three days that I have had to call paramedics to this school over a fight involving essentially the same students. Understand me, there will not be a third time. Now would you care to explain what happened back there, Tendo-san?"

"Yes, sensei. It was really just a continuation of the last time." As she made her explanation, the principal heard the anger and contempt in her voice which she was trying to suppress. "As we explained two days ago, Morishita-san attempted to ask me for a date the day before that, and did not take it well when I turned him down politely, choosing to make unwelcome advances. Then on Wednesday he attacked Ranma twice, presumably for no better reason than that he is my boyfriend. Today, the three of them cornered me in an empty hallway, for purposes which," her face twisted, fury temporarily escaping from her mask, "I would rather not contemplate. When they attacked, I naturally defended myself. Unfortunately, although I am very good at martial arts, I am not quite as skilled as Ranma, and the boys in question are not exactly unskilled. Therefore, in order to defend myself adequately, I was not capable of being quite as gentle with them as Ranma was on Wednesday, resulting in more serious injuries. While I regret that this whole situation has occurred," her voice solidified into stone, "I will not apologize for the injuries which they received."

The principal blinked once or twice, then sighed. Ranma simply gazed on his fiancée proudly.

"Very well, I'll deal with these boys and their families. While I will not ask the two of you not to defend yourselves, may I please ask that you attempt to avoid similar situations in future, and that you be certain to exhaust diplomatic methods of defusing a crisis before resorting to physical methods?"

"Yes, sensei," they both promised.

"All right. Please return to your class. Misaki-san!"

"Yes, Bansui-sensei?" his secretary asked as she stuck her head in the door. Akane and Ranma stepped around her and departed.

The principal addressed his secretary. "Please contact the families of the injured boys and, first, make sure that they are aware of what has happened and, second, inform them that their children are suspended from school next week, and will serve detention every day of the week after that. Also, make appointments for all of them to come in to speak with me about this matter. I am not putting up with boys cornering a girl and attacking her, even if she is capable of defending herself. Make sure that Morishita-san is transferred to a different classroom; I don't want him sharing any further classes with either Tendo-san or Saotome-san. One further thing, please contact Fujitani-sensei at the dojo by the same name, and tell him that I wish to speak to him concerning the conduct of a couple of the students who have trained under him. Let's see how they like explaining their behavior to him!"

Author's note:

Several reviewers have mentioned that the dialogue is a little verbose, and Ranma is perhaps too thoughtful. I thought I'd mention that my wife, who preread the story, brought up the same points. So even while noting these traits in the story you have read, take a moment to say a silent "thank you" to her for her efforts, since the original version sinned more greatly in that regard.