Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma ½ or any of the characters from Ranma ½. This is simply a non-profit work for amusement purposes.
ART OF DECEPTION: Chapter 1
Soun Tendo, a tall, middle aged man with long black hair and a moustache, sat in the family room of his house sorting through the day's mail. Upon noticing a postcard with a picture of panda on the front the rest of the mail was quickly put aside. Turning the postcard over in his hands he read the message that was messily scrawled onto the back of the postcard. 'Hi. Bringing the boy from China. Saotome.' The rest of the mail lay forgotten as Soun ran off to find his daughters with tears now streaming down his face.
A short, black haired girl, dressed in black silk pants and a blue Chinese style shirt ran through the main street of Nerima. Chasing after her in a seemingly vein effort to subdue her was a portly, middle aged, bald man wearing a white gi and glasses. "CUT IT OUT ALREADY!" she yelled as she jumped into the air to avoid the man's attempt to grab her in a bear hug from behind. Spinning in mid air she and deftly delivered a blow to the man's jaw courtesy of her right foot that sent him skidding on his back through a puddle left behind after the morning's rainfall. Anchoring himself to the ground by slamming his fist through the concrete he used his momentum to flip himself off the ground and into the air before landing on his feet facing the irate girl.
"I won't cut it out until you start doing what you're told." Replied the man as he moved himself into an offensive stance, preparing to use a more violent means of persuasion.
The girl moved on the defensive as the man lunged forward with several jabs aimed at her face and chest. "I don't care what you say. I'm having nothing to do with this." She said, taking hold of his arm and using his momentum to lift him up and throw him onto his back once again, knocking down a street sign in the process. She walked over to the man's prone form and stood towering over him with her arms crossed. "What were you thinking? Setting up an arranged marriage." She asked, shooting him a scathing glare.
"Why, I was only looking out for my ungrateful son." The man lied brazenly as he got to his feet.
"Did you even stop to consider your son's feelings when you did this?" she asked sarcastically.
Truth be told, he hadn't thought of his sons feelings on the matter, but then again the marriage was never set up for his son's benefit. Whilst knowing that she would know if he was lying, he decided to lie anyway as it would keep her from knowing his motives behind the arranged marriage. "Of course I did." He said with faked honesty, a faked honesty that even after years of practice failed to be good enough to fool anyone but small children.
"Yeah right, you were probably only thinking of your retirement plan." She said with all seriousness. Then again perhaps she already knew his motives behind the arranged marriage, time to think of something else. Just as he was about to open his mouth to let out a newly concocted lie she cut him off. "Save it. I've got better things to do than listen to you." She turned on her heel and started to walk away from him as she gave her parting words "I'm going to go find..."
Never one to pass up on a golden opportunity, the man took advantage of her turned back by smacking her over the back of the head with the broken street sign, knocking her unconscious, thus explaining her failure to complete her sentence. Having effectively stopped her resistance the man scooped her up and placed her over his shoulder before continuing on his way to their destination.
Soun Tendo sat across the table from his daughters with the postcard in his hands and a smile on his face. He was the happiest he had been in a long time. The only thing that was darkening his day in the slightest at the moment was his daughters and their... lack of enthusiastic responses. In fact, he held the distinct impression that the youngest of his daughters, a girl of medium height, wearing a white gi, with long black hair tied loosely behind her back with a red ribbon, was angry at the suggestion. Hardly surprising however as she was currently asking, quite heatedly, "Don't WE have some say in who we marry?"
He was not sure what to make of his middle daughter, a girl with short brown hair who was wearing a red tank top and denim shorts, who was currently looking extremely bored. Eventually his optimism prompted him to accept this as a good sign, she wasn't protesting and she could easily be hiding her true feelings on the matter, positive feelings he assured himself, she was known to keep her true emotions hidden after all.
His eldest daughter, a tall girl with her long brown hair in a ponytail draped over the shoulder of the simple, light blue dress that she wore, spoke up in support of her youngest sister "Akane's right daddy, we've never even met Ranma." Upon hearing this, his youngest daughter, now identified as Akane, cheered up, knowing that her eldest sister supported her opinion.
This also served the purpose of cheering Soun up, his eldest daughter was curious about her possible fiancé, at least that's what he took her statement to mean. His youngest daughter was now in a better mood and he was still running with the idea that his middle daughter was happy with the idea. So it was with an even bigger smile on his face that he announced "That's easily fixed, Kasumi. Ranma and his father have been on a voyage of training. They have just recently returned to Japan after training in China and are on their way here."
"Wow, China." Exclaimed Nabiki, the middle daughter excitedly having finally found something she liked about the fiancé business; he sounded rich, after all they had been travelling around China and that took money. "Is he cute?" She asked in an attempt to find out other positives about her possible fiancé.
"How old is he? Younger men bore me." Kasumi asked, deciding that she may as well learn as much about Ranma as she could.
"Probably a stupid jerk." Grumbled Akane, though mainly just to have her voice heard.
Soun's joyous mood continued to grow as his daughters started to show interest in their possible fiancé. He was about to open his mouth to answer their questions when he realized he didn't know anything about Ranma. His smile disappeared and his face became serious as he finally replied "No idea, I've never met the boy."
Nabiki was about to verbally abuse her when the sounds of a struggle was heard coming from the direction of the main gate to the Tendo compound. Nabiki and Soun stood up quickly from the table and ran to the front entrance of the house where they saw a man in a white gi carrying a struggling younger person, whose gender they could not make out from their viewpoint, over his shoulder. "LET GO of me you old fool." Said the black haired individual as they pounded on the man's back from where she was still held over his shoulder.
"Saotome." Greeted Soun as he walked up to his old friend, completely ignoring the person on his shoulder.
"Tendo." Grunted the man in response as he finally put down the person he held over his shoulder.
"And you must be Ranma." said Soun as he walked up and hugged the person, knocking the wind out of their stomach, who he assumed was a boy, at least he did until he noticed her breasts pushing against his chest as he hugged her. When that realization sunk into his brain he passed out and keeled over backwards.
Watching her father fall to the ground unconscious for an unknown reason spiked her interest and she walked away from where her sisters had just joined her and over to the black haired girl. Upon reaching her Nabiki noticed the girl's curvy frame and reached out and poked her in the chest confirming her suspicion. Turning to look at her sisters Nabiki said flatly "Our fiancé, is a girl."
Soun awoke to the sound of the wind chime ringing quietly as it was blown about in the breeze. Tears started to roll down his face as he thought of how his greatest dream would now be left unfulfilled. "Oh poor daddy, he's so disappointed." Said Kasumi as she started to wipe his forehead with a damp cloth.
"He's disappointed! Some fiancé this is." Nabiki said jerking her thumb in the girl in questions direction.
"Stop it you two. He... SHE..." she forcefully corrected herself before continuing "is our guest." Akane said unintentionally cutting off the girl off as she rushed to her defence.
Nabiki took no heed of what Akane had said and shifted her focus from Kasumi to her Father. "This is all your fault daddy. You should have made sure." She said heatedly.
This brought Soun out of his stupor as he quickly tried to defend himself "Well he said he had a son." That was when it clicked, Saotome was the cause of his troubles, he was the one who said he had a son, he was the one who had brought his dream to ruins. His head seemed to grow several times its natural size as the anger quickly built up inside of him. "GENMA!" Soun said as his giant head took on a appearance that you would only expect to see in a horror movie. In the next instant he was on his feet and dove at Genma, dive tackling him through the open shoji doors.
By this time the girl was getting frustrated at having been ignored so long and so it was no surprise that after listening to her father and her host brawling in the back yard, a fight that the other occupants of the room were watching intently, her anger blew up. "WILL YOU TWO JUST STOP IT ALREADY." The two fathers stopped instantly and looked at her in shock from where they lay on the ground with their hands on each others throats. "Pop, let go of his neck come in here and explain things." Though she spoke in a calm voice, her anger now temporarily vented, her father, still in shock from her sudden outburst, did, for once, as he was told.
When everyone was again assembled around the table in the family room Genma cleared his throat and spoke in a lecturing tone. "I guess I should start from the beginning. I'm Genma Saotome. And this is my daughter Ranko." He said gesturing at the black haired girl sitting beside him.
"SAOTOME." Yelled Soun, his head once again inflated to a monstrous size. "You said you had a son." He said producing the postcard and shoving the backside of it right in front of Genma's face.
"I do. I do." Said Genma as he made warding motions with his hands in an attempt to placate Soun. "I'm sure the boy will turn up sometime soon, he wanders off from time to time but he always turns up soon enough." he further explained.
"You know this situation could have been avoided if you had just mentioned that you had a son and a daughter Saotome." Soun said in irritated voice.
Genma just laughed it off. The laughter died off in his throat as he noticed the shadow that now loomed over him. "You mean you didn't even mention me oyaji." Ranko said with a feral growl accompanied by a look that promised immense physical pain in his very near future. From that point on it was unanimously decided by the Tendos that they should continue this after Ranko had finished beating up Genma, and when Genma regained the use of his jaw they amended as they heard the crack that sounded through the air as Ranko punched Genma in the jaw.
As Akane watched Ranko swiftly and severely beat her father into unconsciousness she felt a certain kinship with her. She had finally found another girl her age whose passion for martial arts matched her own. Ten minutes after Genma had been knocked out Ranko decided that he had received enough punishment and finally finished her assault on him. As Ranko walked back into the house Akane got to her feet and walked over to her and offered her hand to Ranko. "Hi. I'm Akane. You want to be friends?" After hearing Ranko's positive response Akane took her newly found friend on a tour of the Tendo compound as they got to know each other.
The tour had ended, rather conveniently, at the dojo where Akane and Ranko now stood facing off against each other in the middle of the room. "So you practice karate too?" Akane asked as she watched Ranko take up an identical stance to her own.
"Among other styles." Shrugged Ranko offhandedly. "I'm ready to start whenever you are." Ranko stated as she firmed her stance.
Wasting no time Akane quickly responded "Okay." Before rushing at Ranko and starting off her offensive with a few simple jabs aimed at Ranko's face and upper chest. Ranko blocked all of the punches with a practiced ease before responding with a simple front kick with the goal not of attacking but breaking Akane's offensive. When Akane broke off her attack and left herself open Ranko came in an attempt to kick her in her unprotected stomach. Her attack however came too late and Akane was able to close the hole in her defence and block the attack with her forearm at the last second.
Ranko kept her foot firmly pressed against Akane's forearm until she leapt backwards to give herself space. Akane gently rubbed her arm sure that there was going to be a bruise there later before focusing her attention back to Ranko. She slowly shuffled her way towards Ranko as she tried to determine her next attack. As Ranko had remained perfectly still she felt confident enough to move into arms reach before suddenly dropping into a spinning trip kick. Ranko jumped up into the air easily avoiding the sweep. Akane continued to spin all the way around, standing back up as she did so, before sending a spinning back heal kick at the still airborne Ranko. Unfortunately Akane left herself open as she spun around to continue her attack and so Ranko landed a kick on Akane's shoulder at the same time that Akane's kick sent her sprawling to the ground.
Ranko got to her feet, facing away from Akane, and rubbed at her sore ribs where Akane's kick had landed just a few inches underneath her armpit. She rolled to her right as she heard the sound of Akane's feet rapidly slapping against the dojo's wooden floor and managing to avoid the knee strike aimed for the centre of her back. After missing the attack she had devoted herself to Akane lost her balance temporarily and Ranko was able administer two powerful spin kicks to her stomach driving the wind out of her. It took Akane just over a second to recover from Ranko's last attack and she was able to drive an unprepared Ranko back with an elbow strike before she was able to simulate a disabling blow to end the match.
Akane started on the offensive again slowly backing Ranko towards one of the dojo walls with various kicks and punches. As Akane attacked she left numerous holes in her defence allowing Ranko to deliver multiple blows to vulnerable areas to Akane's front. Ranko didn't get off free in the exchange however as while she was counter attacking Akane she left herself open and Akane was able to land a blow for every two or three hits Ranko landed. When Ranko's back eventually bumped into the wall of the dojo she had to do to the side to avoid the powerful punch Akane threw her way in an attempt to end the match. Ranko was able to easily avoid the attack but the dojo wall was not as fortunate as it now had Akane's fist through it.
Ranko was able to land two blows to Akane's exposed back before Akane was able to pull her hand free of the wall. Akane kept her eyes on Ranko as she slowly made her way back to the centre of the dojo with Ranko following a few steps behind her. Once both of them were back in the centre of the dojo Ranko recommenced the fight by feinting a jab with her right hand before snapping her left leg into Akane's side as she dodged to the right to avoid the punch. Akane caught Ranko's follow up punch in her hand and heaved backwards pulling Ranko into an over the shoulder throw sending her into the air arcing towards one of the dojo walls. Ranko spun in midair so that she was able to spring off the dojo wall back towards where Akane was charging towards her. Akane leapt up in midair and slammed her knee into Ranko's stomach at the same time Ranko's fist connected with her chin leaving them both to fall to the ground in a tangled heap.
"Want to call it a draw?" Akane asked as she attempted to get up from underneath where Ranko was lying on her.
"Sure." Ranko said as she tried to get up off of Akane only to find her arm was under Akane's body. She rolled off of Akane and waited for her to sit up before doing so herself.
"You're pretty good." Akane said with a smile that didn't seem to belong on her face considering that bruises were already starting to show up on her skin.
"You're pretty good to." Replied Ranko with a smile that looked just as out of place on her face as Akane's did on hers.
After that they sat there chatting idly for a few minutes before the heard Kasumi's call of "Lunch is ready." drifted in from the house. Upon hearing this they slowly got to their feet before hobbling their way into the house.
After lunch Ranko and Akane quickly washed up before soaking in the furo while the others, excluding Nabiki, worked on getting the Saotomes settled in. Genma moved his belongings, a single large backpack, into the, larger, downstairs, guest room that he and Ranma would be sharing, Soun moved Ranko's things into the upstairs guest room and Kasumi rolled out three futons to air. After Ranko and Genma had unpacked their belongings everyone regathered in the family room on Soun and Genma's request.
"Can we get this started already?" Said an irritated Nabiki, wanting to get back to checking over her stock portfolio, earning a collective nod from her sisters and Ranko.
"It's good to see that your daughters are so enthusiastic about the arranged marriage, Tendo." Said Genma mirthfully, slapping Soun on the back in celebration. Sighing, the girls mentally chastised themselves for not realizing that this would be what their fathers had called them together for.
"Indeed, Saotome." Soun agreed, barely able to hold back the flood of tears threatening to flow down his face. He took a moment to recompose himself before continuing. "Anyway, we have called you all here to decide which of you will be Ranma's fiancée."
"Shouldn't Ranma be here for this? After all this affects him too." Kasumi asked in a subtle attempt to forestall this conversation until they could find a way to talk the fathers out of the arranged marriage idea.
"There's no need, we will simply chose the one of you most likely to get along with Ranma. He will abide by our decision." Said Genma in a voice clearly stating, that for once, he was telling the truth.
"Yeah right," snorted Akane, "as if anyone would want their marriage arranged for them."
"It's a matter of family honour that the Tendo and Saotome schools are united by marriage." Said Genma in a manner one would normally use when stating an irrefutable fact.
"And that's supposed to mean what exactly?" Asked Nabiki, left wondering what someone else meant for the first time in many years.
As Genma just sat there with a smug grin on his face Ranko felt obligated to answer Nabiki's question. "Ranma puts honour above pretty much everything, he's almost honourable to a fault, if he has to get married to someone, even someone he doesn't even like, to preserve family honour he'll do it."
The room was filled with a contemplative silence for a moment before Soun spoke up again. "Alright, back to the matter at hand. Now Saotome, why don't you tell us more about Ranma."
Genma thought carefully about all of the things he knew about his son before replying "He's one of the best martial artists of his generation."
After waiting two minutes it became clear that Genma was not about to add anything else to his description of Ranma so Soun turned to Ranko for help. "Ranko, can you please... elaborate."
Sighing at Genma's single-mindedness Ranko proceeded to further describe Ranma. "He's my age, we're twins, just over a head taller than me, black hair, normally in a pigtail, fairly muscular, likes to wear Chinese clothes, strong headed, and as pop said, martial arts obsessed."
"Any other interests?" Nabiki asked lazily, being engaged to a stranger was bad enough without him having a one track mind for martial arts.
"Not that I know of." Replied Ranko awkwardly.
The room again fell silent, this time it was Nabiki who broke the silence. "Well it sounds like Akane's the one for him, they're both martial arts obsessed." She said, quite happy to dump the engagement on her little sister in order to get herself out of it.
Akane tried to protest but was cut off as Kasumi quickly followed suit. "And they're the closest in age."
"It's agreed then," Soun said with finality "Ranma will be engaged to Akane. Now that business is out of the way, Saotome, let's pull out the shogi board, pour some sake, and celebrate."
Ranko awoke to the sound of tapping on the guest room window. Sitting up in her futon Ranko made a mental note to herself to buy an alarm clock as all she able to discern about the time was that it was late. Getting to her feet she walked the short distance to the window and drew back the curtains revealing a dark figure hanging upside down from the roof tiles. Sliding the window open she gestured for the person to enter, muttering under her breath about people choosing more convenient times to show up. Ranko then walked over towards the door and turned on the light revealing a tall boy with black hair tied up in a pigtail, wearing black ankle tie pants with a red silk shirt, leaning against the wall next to the open window.
"Where's your stuff?" Ranko asked noticing the lack of his travelling bag.
"Just up on the roof, I'll go and get it now." Ranma replied before leaping out the window, grabbing hold of the roof and swinging himself up onto the roof, before returning just seconds later with a large backpack slung over his shoulders.
"How did you know I was in this room anyway?" Ranko asked curiously.
"I didn't. I just decided to choose random windows and worked my way through them knowing I'd find your room eventually." He said as he put down his backpack revealing a sheathed katana strapped to his back.
"You did what? You'd better not have woken anyone else up." Ranko hissed at him as she hauled him off the ground by the collar of his shirt.
"Don't worry. Yours was the first window I tried." He replied as his face broke out into a smile.
"Jerk." She replied, smacking him over the head with her spare hand before roughly throwing him against the wall. "You knew I was in this room didn't you, you just wanted to get me mad." Ranma's growing smile was answer enough. "Why didn't you wait until morning to come here?" Ranko asked as her anger started to ebb away.
"I figured I could talk to you and find out why we're here the easy way instead of waiting for something to blow up in my face and finding out that way, because you know oyaji doesn't tell me a thing until it's too late." He sighed.
Ranma stood up stiffly and started to walk towards the door as Ranko starting laughing out loud at his proclamation. "Hey, where do you think you're going?" asked Ranko as she moved to block the door.
"I'm going to go relieve some stress." Ranma said with a sinister snarl as he attempted to push past Ranko.
"You can beat on pop tomorrow, if you do it now you'll wake everyone else up." Ranko said, herding Ranma away from the door.
After a few minutes of trying to push past Ranko to no avail Ranma plopped down heavily on the floor once again. "Since you're not letting me beat up on oyaji you may as well tell me what he's done so I can come up with a fitting punishment."
"Firstly, we start school tomorrow morning." Ranko said before falling silent and waiting for Ranma to prompt her for the second thing.
"That's not so bad." Ranma said contemplatively. "Okay, what else is there?" he asked heatedly as he heard Ranko's snicker.
"You're engaged." Ranko said breaking out into full laughter, she quickly recomposed herself however as she had to once again stop a silently fuming Ranma from going to throttle Genma.
Once Ranko had managed to get Ranma seated again he uttered a single word "Explain."
"It seems pop arranged a marriage between his and Mr Tendo's unborn children around twenty years ago and since Mr. Tendo only had daughters and you're pops' only son you're bound by family honour to marry one of his daughters. It's been decided that you'll marry Mr Tendo's youngest daughter Akane, she's our age and she seems pretty nice." Ranko explained. "In case you're wondering, she isn't happy about the situation either." Ranko added as Ranma slammed his fist into the floor. "Now if that's all your questions I'm going to go to sleep, we've got school tomorrow and I'm sure pops gonna wake me up early for training." Ranko said as she crawled back into her futon and pulled the covers over herself.
"Don't worry Ranko; I'm sure you'll get to sleep in tomorrow. I think oyaji's gonna be too sore to spar with you tomorrow." Ranma said, cracking his knuckles ominously.
As Ranma had predicted Ranko was allowed to sleep in and so by the time she came downstairs everybody else was already sitting down for breakfast and getting to know Ranma.
Akane had decided, after Ranko had put a good word in for him, to be civil to Ranma at least until she was able to determine if he was a decent person who was simply stuck in a bad situation he had no real control over or a pervert who would try to take advantage of the situation. "Why were you beating up your father this morning? Is it a family sport or something?" Akane asked Ranma after having watched Genma being kicked around the backyard twice in as many days.
"I guess it's kind of a sport, mainly I just do it for its therapeutic value though." Ranma replied and was about to continue before Akane interrupted him.
"Therapeutic value?" Akane asked as she scratched her head in confusion.
"Yeah, you see last night I found out that I was engaged, without my permission, to someone I didn't even know and I, understandably, got stressed." Ranma started and then waited until Akane nodded in understanding before he continued. "So I used oyaji as a moving punching bag to relieve my stress. I can understand if you don't want to hurt your father so if you need to de-stress feel free to vent your stress on oyaji." Ranma continued eliciting a hesitant nod from Akane and protest from Genma, which was ignored by all.
Ranko noticed something unusual as she sat down and started to eat but wasn't able to put her finger on it straight away. She snapped her fingers upon figuring out and turned to Genma and asked cheekily "Ranma got you pretty good huh? You didn't wake me up for training and you're not even bothering to try and steal my food."
"Ungrateful children." Genma muttered under his breath as he continued to nurse his sore arm and ribs while he ate.
"Well, I'm off to school, I'll see you three later." Said Nabiki as she got up from the table and headed out the door on her way to school to set up the mornings betting pools. After saying a quick goodbye everyone returned to finishing off their own meals. It was ten minutes later that Akane, Ranma and Ranko headed off to school together leaving their fathers to start celebrating their perceived acceptance of the engagement and Kasumi to try to keep them from messing up the clean house.
Akane walked to school, with Ranma and Ranko, dressed in her school uniform which consisted of a white blouse under a blue dress that reached just past her knees. "Why are you carrying a sword with you?" Akane asked incredulously as she looked up at where Ranma was walking along a chain link fence wearing his trademark black ankle tie pants and red silk shirt with said katana hanging over his shoulder by a leather strap attached to each end of its sheath.
"I got used to having it with me while I was wondering around China by myself. It does a great job of deterring bandits." Ranma replied without turning to look at her.
"I thought the three of you were training in China together." Akane questioned Ranko who was currently dressed in one of Akane's spare school uniforms.
"We were at the beginning of the trip but then Ranma started wanting to go to different dojos and training grounds than pop, so he went off on his own a whole lot, he'd always rejoin us two or three weeks later hang around for about a week before taking off again." Ranko explained.
"I would've left for longer but I had to make sure oyaji hadn't gone and sold you for food or something worse." Ranma added from atop of his perch on the fence.
"Yeah right, you probably just didn't want pop to teach me something he hadn't taught you." Ranko replied playfully.
"Maybe." Ranma replied cryptically while adding silently to himself 'Though I was more worried that he might have taught you some of stuff that he taught me.'
"Come on, you're father wouldn't sell Ranko for food, would he?" Akane asked, worried about the type of person that was now living at her house.
"He would've stolen her back afterwards if it's any consolation." Ranma replied seriously. "At least, that's what he did with me the few times I can remember him doing it."
"That's not true is it Ranko?" Akane asked, pleading that Ranma simply had a bad sense of humour and was just joking.
"I don't know. Ranma says it happened before I joined him on the training trip and I'm pretty sure he's telling the truth, either that or he just misunderstood what happened because he isn't lying, you can tell when he is, couldn't lie to save his life." Ranko sighed.
"Wait a minute, weren't you on the training trip with Ranma from the start?" Akane asked, happy to move onto lighter topics.
"Nah, I only joined up with them around four years ago when it became obvious to mom that I was really interested in martial arts, before that I only got to go to local dojos. Ranma's been travelling around with pop since he was, what? Four? She replied, directing the last bit to Ranma.
"Around that I guess." Shrugged Ranma having already lost interest in the conversation a few minutes ago.
After a few more minutes of walking Akane noticed the school building looming up ahead. "Listen, when we get to school, there's going to be a fight and I want you two to stay out of it okay?" she said, turning her head in their direction just long enough to get their affirmative nods before building herself up into a full paced run towards the school gates with Ranma and Ranko following behind her.
Upon reaching the school grounds Ranma leapt up onto the gatepost just as Akane started to tear into a group made up of roughly fifty boys dressed in various sporting outfits and armed with various sports equipment. "Looks like you've found a training partner perfectly suited to you Ranko." Ranma commented as Akane delivered a particularly harsh blow to a boy dressed in a gi when he left a slight hole in his defence.
"How's she perfectly suited to me?" Ranko asked distractedly as she watched Akane narrowly avoid a powerful strike from a kendoist's shinai. "Shouldn't we be helping her?" Ranko asked after shaking her head free of distractions.
"She's perfectly suited to you as a training partner because she has a good offensive style but sorely lacks defence and you have the opposite problem. And she said she didn't want us to interfere and she's winning the fight so there's no need for you to step in." Ranma replied unconcerned about the carnage taking place in front of him.
In just over a minute Akane stood victorious, surrounded by the twitching forms of the boys who had been laid flat by her. "I really wish they'd give up already." Akane huffed as she caught her breath in preparation of what she knew was coming.
"Truly, they are such a boorish lot." Said a tall boy wearing a dark blue hakama as he stepped out from behind one of the trees in the school grounds carrying a bokken in his right hand and a red rose in his left. "Evidently each of them intends to ask you out on the dawn that they finally defeat you." He said, radiating arrogance from every ounce of his being.
"I don't have time for this today upperclassman; I have to take these new students to the office for administration." Akane said gesturing in the general direction of Ranma and Ranko hoping that she would be able to avoid fighting the current bane of her existence.
"Don't worry fair Akane," he replied throwing her the rose before grasping hold of his of bokken with both hands and drawing it up into a ready position "I'm sure that such matters can wait the short time that our fight will take."
"Don't rush beating him up on our account." Ranko said cheerfully as she and Ranma walked towards Akane, quite happy to have Akane beat up the person that had already managed to irritate her with his smugness in the two minutes she had known of him.
"I'm in no hurry to get to class." Ranma added also happy to let Akane beat up a person he had never met before. Though his reasons were more innocent than Ranko's, he simply wanted to see how good Akane's skills were when she took on an opponent roughly at her own level of skill.
"Stay out of this fiend." Said the, as of yet, unnamed samurai wannabe as he levelled his bokken at Ranma. "What relation have you to my beloved Akane Tendo?"
"Our parents are good friends, so we're staying at their house for a while." Ranma replied calmly, having gotten used to weapons being pointed at him threateningly after years of it happening on a semi-regular basis.
"I see, you carry a sword and are living under the same roof as my beloved, no doubt you believe yourself to be a warrior worthy of such a fair maiden, but I will not have it, I will best you to show you that she is mine. What is your name, I wish to know the name of my foe before I cut him down. Ah but it is the custom to give ones own name first, fine then, mine I shall give. My name is Upperclassman Kuno, junior group E. Captain of the Kendo club. Undefeated new star of the high school fencing world. But my peers call me... the blue thunder of Furinkan high." He said striking a noble pose, or at least trying to.
"Ranma Saotome." Ranma replied simply as he was still trying to figure out half of what Kuno had said.
"I hope for your sake that you know how to use that sword of yours samurai wannabe." Said Kuno as he prepared to lunge forwards at his target.
"Hey, I'm not the one wearing the hakama. Besides this is only for decoration." Ranma replied indicating to the katana on his back in an attempt to lower Kuno's hostilities.
"Then it shall be an easy victory." Said Kuno as he lunged forwards in an attempt to strike Ranma down, as he had proclaimed he would, when Akane, not trusting Ranma's fighting ability and being thoroughly pissed off at Kuno once again, stepped into his path and cleaned him up with a single kick to the side of his head.
"Thanks for the save." Ranma said, thankful that he was not made to take care of the deranged kendoist himself. "The sword is supposed to be a deterrent to people who want to fight me not an invitation to people to fight me."
"Don't worry about him, he's not living in the same world as the rest of us. Now let's go, I have to take you two to the office and then go to class." Akane said as she started walking towards the main school building.
"May as well go and get this over with." Ranko agreed as she hurried up to catch up to Akane with Ranma following along behind her.
Ranko and Ranma sat in the administration office waiting for the receptionist, a brunette wearing a black skirt, red blouse and glasses, to bring them their enrolment forms. "You can't read or write?" Ranko asked Ranma wryly.
"Oyaji didn't consider reading or writing important to my training, so he never taught me." Ranma shrugged.
"Whatever." Ranko sighed in agreement as the receptionist returned with the forms. Ranma sat back and waited in silence while Ranko to fill out her forms. It was roughly ten minutes later that Ranma was pulled out his thoughts by Ranko as she started to shake him. "Hey, Ranma what gender are you?" Ranko asked with a large smile on her face as soon as she had received Ranma's attention.
Ranma grimaced, not liking having his manhood brought into question, even as a joke. "Last time I checked I was male, but since that could have changed, I'll check." Ranma replied sourly before patting down his chest rather loudly. "Feels like I'm still male to me." Ranma said, feeling a little happier now.
"Maybe you're just flat chested." Ranko replied teasingly as she ticked the appropriate box.
They both fell silent again until Ranko finished filling out Ranma's forms and calling out to the receptionist who came, collected the forms and returned to her desk.
"Ranma, you can't read or write. Is that correct?" the receptionist asked upon her return some several minutes later. "I think the easiest thing to do will be to put you into class as normal and have someone arranged to teach you how to read and write. You will, of course, be exempt from written tasks until such time as you learn to read. Does that sound okay to you?" She asked upon receiving Ranma's nod in the affirmative. Ranma once again responded positively. "Okay, I'll just go fill out the paperwork necessary and then I'll take the both of you to class." She said before once again returning to her desk.
"That was surprising; I thought you'd be put into a remedial class or something." Ranko said after the receptionist had left.
"Yeah, but what I find really surprising is that no one seems bothered by my sword." Ranma replied after shrugging Ranko's statement off. Ranko just shook her head as Ranma showed just how much interest he had in his education.
"Could I have a word with you please Nabiki." Said Kuno, now dressed in school uniform, black trousers and a plain white shirt, as he strode up to where Nabiki sat at her desk waiting for class to start.
Nabiki, smelling a profit coming her way, was quite happy to oblige. "What do you want?" Nabiki said in her business voice.
"I wish to know what you can tell me about the vile creature known as Ranma Saotome." Kuno said as he dug into his pocket for his wallet.
"Five thousand yen please." Nabiki said as she placed her hand out awaiting her payment which she quickly counted then pocketed as soon as she received it. "He's Akane's fiancé." Nabiki told him straight away, knowing that he would run off and seek vengeance instantly allowing her to make a greater profit when he returned later to find out the rest of the information she knew about Ranma.
Nabiki wasn't disappointed, Kuno reacted as she knew he would. "FIANCE! I will not allow it." Shouted Kuno as he Ran from the classroom to retrieve his bokken before searching for Ranma.
Kuno burst into the class that Ranma, Ranko and Akane were in, gasping for breath after having burst into most of the rooms in the school in his search for Ranma. "Never Ranma Saotome, shall I accept your engagement to Akane." Kuno said as he grabbed proper hold of his bokken. He was unable to attack however as Ranma and Akane's classmates, with the exception of Ranko, swarmed around them upon hearing Kuno's announcement.
Ranko walked up to Kuno as he yelled at the 'peasants who dared block his path' and punched him in the face. "What is your problem?" She asked as she removed his fist from his face.
Kuno took notice of Ranko for the first time, having ignored her earlier as his focus was on Ranma, and temporarily forgot about Ranma as his deluded mind came to the conclusion that Ranko wished to date him. "A challenge is it? Fine then, I accept. Should you win I shall let you go out with me." He said unknowingly raising Ranko's temper.
After shuddering violently at the image Kuno's words put in her head she ran to the window, turned to Kuno and said "Whatever. Follow me." Before jumping out the window and landing lightly on her feet. Kuno complied and followed her out the window, landing hard and hurting his legs in the process. Ranko gave him time to recover, wanting to be able to hurt him as much as possible herself. As soon as Kuno recovered sufficiently from his fall he charged at Ranko with his bokken held overhead.
Ranko caught the bokken between the palms of her hands as Kuno swung it down at her before kicking him in his now unguarded ribs with all her might as she let it go sending him tumbling along the ground. Kuno slowly picked himself up and dusted himself off before charging at her again with a horizontal swipe that Ranko jumped over, tagging him in the head with her fist as he passed beneath her.
As Kuno shook his head to clear the forming dizziness Ranko ran at him and kicked him in the shoulder blade knocking him over. As he was still getting up Ranko decided to take pity on him and finish it with her next blow, an axe kick to the back of the head knocking him out. She picked up his unconscious body and placed him up against a nearby tree before heading back to class. She made it back to class just as the teacher started to gain control over the unruly class. In the chaos, no one had even noticed her leave.
Ranma slowly lowered himself into the hot water of the furo. While his body was relaxing in the hot water he started to meditate to relax his mind as well, reducing his awareness of his surroundings. He was reminded of his surroundings some minutes later as an ear piercing scream broke him out of his meditation. His curses were drowned out by the sound of the door that separated the inner and outer bath being slammed oped then shut in rapid succession. He waited until he heard the outer bath door being opened and closed violently before reluctantly pulling himself out of the furo so that he could defuse the situation.
After drying himself off and putting on a change of clothes Ranma walked out of the outer bath and up the stairs before walking up to and knocking on Akane's bedroom door. After a minute of waiting in silence he tried again. "C'mon Akane, open up." He said.
He stood there for a few seconds before he heard the sounds of footsteps behind the door. As the door started to open he relaxed thinking that he may have caught a break for once. That thought was driven out of his head courtesy of an oversized mallet being brought down onto his head accompanied by the scream of "PERVET."
He shakily pulled himself to his knees as he rubbed the lump that was starting to form on his head. "Couldn't you at least have given me a chance ta explain things before hitting at me?" Ranma asked grumpily.
"What's to explain pervert." Akane hissed angrily as she stared spitefully at Ranma.
"Hey, you walked in on me." Ranma shot back in his defence.
"You didn't put the sign up." Akane said, quickly shooting down Ranma's defence.
"Oops." Ranma replied elegantly. Having won the argument Akane went to shut the door only to close it on Ranma's foot. "I can prove I'm not a pervert if you just let me talk to you." Ranma said desperately, not wanting another person added to the long list of people out to kill or maim him.
"Alright." Akane said eventually as she opened the door to let Ranma in, keeping her mallet ready.
"I want you to promise that you won't tell anyone what I'm about to tell you, okay?" Ranma said as he entered Akane's room pulling the door shut behind him.
Genma was confused as he sat down at the table awaiting dinner that evening, he could feel the ominous aura being projected from the Tendos currently gathered at the table but could sense no danger nearby. Adding to his confusion was the fact that Kasumi, who he had assumed to be the family cook, was sitting at the table with everyone else. "Why is everyone so gloomy?" he asked with a chuckle, at least he tried too, the chuckle dyed in his throat.
"Everyone just a little anxious about Akane cooking." Kasumi said, the lack of her usual serene voice the only indication needed to know it was a vast understatement.
Akane soon came out from the kitchen carrying a large tray and bowl, the tray looked to be holding a pile of black rubber, the bowl was full of what seemed to be burnt rice. Akane looked at the others expectantly as she waited for them to taste her food, the fact that it was food was not debatable, it was food, the edibility of said food however was a different matter.
When no one at the table made a move to eat the food and Akane started to get impatient Genma's self preservation instinct kicked in. "Well boy, show some gratitude to your fiancée and try some." Genma said, using a tried and true technique to determine the safety of a situation, use the boy as a guinea pig. Ranma dug in without hesitation, shocking everybody by the lack of violent convulsions. "How is it boy?" Genma asked in shocked fascination.
"Not bad. Had better." Ranma barely managed to make out around the food he was continually shovelling into his mouth. This put a smile on Akane's face, finally someone who appreciated her cooking. As Ranma was still alive and showing no negative effects after over a minute of eating the others said their prayers and prepared to eat some of the food. They regretted their decision the moment the food touched their mouths and they fell to the ground in agony. Ranma never one to pass up an opportunity to eat food happily started to eat his fathers' share of the food as he tried to figure out what everyone else's problem was.
A/N: For people interested in reading more of this story, got to be one or two people, I should be updating at least every 3 weeks, if time spent working on this chapter is any indication. This is my first fan fiction so constructive criticism is appreciated as it will probably help improve my writing style. If you think there is a spelling mistake in here somewhere keep in mind that it may just be Australian spelling of the word. Hope you enjoyed this enough that you don't feel you wasted your time in reading it.