Author's Notes:
Once again, apologies for the delay; real life just has not been cooperating with us recently. Still, we managed to get this ready at long last, so thanks for waiting patiently; consider this my birthday present to you all.
Chapter 6: Fury of the Eternally Lost Boy!
One week after the events of Chapter 5...
Sure enough, as Ranma had said, there was no sign of Ryoga the next day. The only challenger Ranma faced when he arrived at school was Kuno, and such was Ranma's brooding over his encounter with Ryoga that this time, he gave Kuno the fight he wanted... Well, if you could call "knocking him out cold with a single kick to the face" a fight. Kuno had woken up in time for class, but seeing Ranma take him down so nonchalantly had definitely done wonders for Ranma's reputation. Especially coming hot on the heels of his beating up the entire Hentai Horde himself.
This ignominious defeated hadn't quenched Kuno's thirst for retribution, and so he'd challenged Ranma in the exact same way the very next morning. And had lost again. And then again the next day. And the day after that. In fact, every single school day for a week, Ranma and Kuno met first thing in the morning, and Ranma knocked Kuno out senseless with a quick strike and left the elder boy to sit in a daze of bemusement and pain.
By this point, all doubt as to whether Ranma could really beat Kuno was well and truly squashed.
It was lunchtime at Furinkan, one week to the day after Ryoga's letter had arrived, when Kikuko hurried over to Nabiki. "Ryoga's here! He just showed up in the middle of a soccer field a few minutes ago!" she quickly informed her boss.
Nabiki's head snapped up from her bento; "Are he and Ranma fighting already?" she asked, resignation filling her voice like a politician in a too small suit.
Kikuko shook her head with some giggles slipping past her lips. "No! He was standing in the middle of the field as a game was being held - the ball hit him in the back of the head and knocked him out cold!" she reported, now openly giggling.
Ryonami snorted disdainfully from her own seat nearby. "What a moron."
"They took him to the nurse's office... Nabiki, do you think they're going to fight after school?" Kikuko asked, a hint of worry coloring her words once she got her mirth under control.
"If he doesn't wake up and get himself lost again, you can count on it,"Nabiki said decisively to her minion, before she did something no-one who knew her would believe possible...freely share information, "This isn't just any old grudge... so we're going to need to get ready to handle the betting! A pity we couldn't prepare for this sooner, but even Ranma had no idea when Ryoga would get here, challenge letter or no so it's not like we had a lot of other options."
"You mean he sent Ranma a formal challenge letter? Like in the old movies? And then he was late?" Ryonami scoffed incredulously as she rolled her eyes. "Like I said; total loser. Still, at least we can profit from his ineptitude"
"Actually... maybe we can run a betting pool on what this whole thing is about?" Kikuko suggested, giving Nabiki a nervous look. She didn't usually make suggestions like that; confidence wasn't the ginger's strong point.
"Running a pool where you don't know the odds is a sucker's game, Kikuko," Nabiki gently chided her, so as to not stifle Kikuko's budding initiative. "But nice thought, all the same."
"Wait, you mean Ranma hasn't told you what this is all about?" Ryonami asked, quirking an inquisitive eyebrow.
"He doesn't know! The last time he ever saw Ryoga was when they were setting up that stupid duel over the bread. If missing that fight isn't what this whole thing's about, then Ranma has no idea what Ryoga wants to fight over," Nabiki explained, her exasperation not hard to see.
Privately, it was bothering her. She didn't like not knowing things, and when it concerned her Ranma, well, it was frankly grating on her that this feud was so wrapped in mystery. But she consoled herself that her questions would be answered soon; once Ranma beat Ryoga senseless, then Ranma could make him give them all a straight answer as to what this was all about!
That afternoon...
Fortunately, it turned out that Ryoga was willing to swallow his pride and not only stay put after waking up in the Furinkan nurse's office, but also let somebody else lead him out to one of the fields after school was done for the day. The word of Ryoga's return had spread like wildfire, and once again people had gathered, anxious to see Ranma do battle. Ranma's repeated defeats of Kuno, who was watching (or sulking, as some would put it) from the sidelines, had made him something of the school's unofficial replacement champion in the eyes of many - but plenty had seen Ryoga's crater-making piledriver a week earlier, and the odds were fairly evenly matched. Nabiki and her henchwenches were actually struggling to keep abreast of the tides of votes and side-votes, hastily writing ticket stubs and calculating odds. Still, Nabiki spared at least the corner of her eye to watch as her fiance stood in the field, ready to do battle, and she wished him luck.
Even if it did make it a little harder for her to slant the odds to secure a better profit...
Oblivious to his girlfriend's thoughts on profit margins, Ranma stared down his old friend/adversary. The eternally lost boy was dirty and visibly travel-worn, but clearly undaunted; whether it was because his stamina was just that stupidly good - and Ranma remembered it as being one of Ryoga's better physical traits - or he'd just made the best of having half the school day to rest up in the nurse's office, who could say? Either way, Ranma knew that this time, the fight was going to be for real...
Oblivious to Ranma's thoughts, Ryoga clenched his fists and snickered to himself, a dark grin on his lips. "Welcome, Ranma! What cunning you showed in escaping last time!" he mockingly praised his foe.
At this, Ranma's expression grew thunderous; having spent the last week brooding over Ryoga's strange behavior, he was in no mood to tolerate that kind of slander. "Who're you talkin' about?! You're the one who wandered off and got lost, Ryoga!" he snapped back, thrusting an accusatory finger at his rival.
"Hey, shut up!" Ryoga snarled back his oh so witty retort, flushing at the titters from the crowd it garnered. "What would you know about it anyway?!"
Ryoga clenched his fist and shut his eyes, posing dramatically as he declared, "I got back to Japan a month ago... I've traveled the deep blue sea. It was already summertime in Okinawa when I returned. And then there were those weeks I was lost in the jungle... I thought I was going to die for sure!" His eyes snapped open and he stared at Ranma, fist still clenched. "Now! We're going to settle this! For good!"
By this point, Ryoga's dramatics had Ranma covering his face with his hand in exasperation. "I don't know what to tell ya, Ryoga..."
"You're damn right! You've got no right to say anything to me! Not after what you've done!" As he said this, Ryoga shrugged off his backpack and dropped it on the ground, grabbing his umbrella and unsheathing it from its position atop the pack.
"That's not what I meant, you idiot!" Ranma snapped back, waving his arms in protest.
"I've heard enough of your talking already!" Ryoga retorted, causing Ranma to double-facepalm at the failure to communicate. Flipping his umbrella around into his hand, he bellowed, "Fight!" and lunged at Ranma, jabbing and swinging the unlikely weapon like a sword.
By this point, all the betting was closed, freeing Nabiki up to watch the fight as well. She tried to stay confident as Ranma fell back on the defensive, dodging Ryoga's strikes with last-minute body-shifts, supercharged hops, and rapid ducks, reminding herself that Ranma had done the same thing with Kuno. 'He's just putting on a show... like he did the last time. This guy Ryoga could never beat him back in junior high, he said so himself!' Nabiki told herself.
Funny... it wasn't actually as reassuring as she would have thought...
Oblivious to his fiancee's concerns, Ranma made a great leap to evade a scything horizontal strike from Ryoga's umbrella. "Could you at least tell me why we're fighting?" he pleaded.
"Shut up!" Ryoga denied him loudly, jumping up to catch Ranma and taking a vertical swipe at his foe with his umbrella - and missing by a mile, because he clearly didn't have the mid-air combat training that Ranma did.
Ranma hit the ground first, landing lightly on his feet. "Have it your way," he called back to Ryoga over his shoulder, an action deliberately chosen for its taunting value.
Having landed in a crouch, Ryoga let out a wordless cry of frustrated rage as he sprang up, whirled around and charged Ranma, who continued to toy with his old rival by refusing to strike back.
The two fighters dashed back and forth across the hardpacked earth, grunting and snarling as they battled, the audience watching in marvel at the speed of their movements - especially their attacks! Even Nabiki had to bite back a gasp when Ryoga stabbed at Ranma's heart with his umbrella, only for Ranma to slap it aside with a counter-strike at the very last moment.
Akane, meanwhile, was watching with conflicted emotions, awe and envy twisting and turning up inside her guts. At her sides, her good friends Yuka and Sayuri watched, the dark brunette covering her mouth and huddling up closer to Akane in fearful amazement, whilst the lighter brunette's forgotten ice-cream cone began to drip onto her wrist as she watched in amazement.
A sudden gentle nudge at her side drew Nabiki's attention away from the battle. "Hey, Nabiki? Final take is 11473 yen... looks like they all placed their bets on Ranma," Ryonami informed her.
"What? Nobody bet on Ryoga at all?" Nabiki asked, the question enough to overshadow her worry for Ranma's plight. "We were expecting Ranma to be the favorite, but... seriously?"
"Oh, there's a couple of people who bet on the new guy, but most of the big bets were on Ranma cleaning his clock," Ryonami explained.
"No surprise after watching him cream Kuno in every fight they had," Kikuko added, her eyes glued to the battle like everyone else's.
Nabiki sighed. "Well... we'll figure something out, ladies. We knew this was a possibility - that's why we made the odds what they were. We couldn't predict he'd seem like this sure of a bet."
Ryonami blinked incredulously; this was not like Nabiki at all. "But Nabiki, what if Ranma wins? We might be looking at being cleaned out, not just a low profit margin!"
"Then we'll eat the loss and we'll learn from it for the next time," Nabiki stated, in her firmest, iciest tone. "Betting on him is one thing, but I am not going to sabotage him!" she declared, her gaze boring into her underling like hot coals dropped onto ice.
"...You're the boss, Nabiki," Ryonami agreed, visibly wilting, not having actually suggested sabotaging Ranma in particular, but not willing to push any further into hot water than she already was.
"Besides; would you like to go down into the thick of that?" Kikuko asked, pointing at the fray, and drawing Nabiki's attention back to her fiance.
As Ranma leapt back from a diagonal strike, Ryoga flipped his parasol open. "Take this, you coward!" he hollered almost frenetically, and flung it out, sending it skittering across the ground like a top.
Ranma stepped out of its way at the last second, and instinctively his gaze followed it as the umbrella hit where he had been and then bounced away in another direction... a fatal error! Quick as lightning, Ryoga whipped out something from inside his shirt and flung it at Ranma, who tried to deflect it with his forearm, only for it to latch on with a ringing metallic clink. Ranma stared at his wrist, momentarily dumbfounded as he tried to process what had happened, only to realize that a handcuff on the end of a long, thin cable had snapped shut around his wrist. He looked over at Ryoga, who smirked back and fastened the second cuff shut around his own wrist.
"These ought to prevent you from escaping me again, Ranma," Ryoga taunted him, his expression positively suffused with smug pride at having 'cornered' Ranma.
"How many times do I have to tell you that I didn't run away?!" Ranma shouted in frustration, his hands instinctively reaching up to tug on his hair in pure frustration.
In the time it took him to say those words, however, Ryoga had closed the distance between them; Ranma threw up his unchained arm to deflect Ryoga's punch, and then the two made simultaneous high-kicks at each other's heads, each deflecting the other with their wrist in a perfect cross-counter. Once more, Ryoga resumed his assault, punching with savage intensity at his rival. With the cable binding them to each other, Ranma's ability to evade was impeded, but he managed to keep Ryoga at arm's length.
On the sidelines, Nabiki licked suddenly dry lips. This was looking a lot more like an actual fight than any of Ranma's duels with Kuno had ever done. She couldn't take her eyes off of the brawling boys... at least, not until Ryonami nudged her ribs with her elbows and quietly asked her, "When is Ranma going to stop playing around and take him down?"
Kikuko cut off Nabiki's attempts to answer Ryonami when she suddenly interjected, "Are you so certain he's playing? Look at that!" she said, pointing over to the side, audibly nervous.
Nabiki followed Kikuko's outthrust pointer finger over to where her little sister was sitting. Ryoga's umbrella had come to rest lying on the ground over there, and her heart sank as she saw some of the boys from Ranma's class try and fail to lift Ryoga's umbrella. The sinking sensation only deepened as an inquisitive Akane gave it a try - and she too failed to pick it up. Only when she used both hands was she able to lift it from the ground, visibly straining to do so. And Nabiki knew that her sister was no slouch in the strength department - raw skill, maybe she fell behind Ranma, and arguably even Kuno, but in pure strength? She definitely outclassed her would-be beau. The memories of that crater in the front walkway of the school suddenly bubbled to the surface, and Nabiki swallowed, a stab of genuine fear piercing her heart.
"Ranma..." she whispered nervously, too worried about her fiance's safety to care for her reputation as "The Ice Queen" in that moment.
In the center of the field, oblivious to Nabiki's concerns, Ranma twisted his head out of the way of a thrusting fist from Ryoga - but not quickly enough. Whether it was the air pressure or Ryoga's thick, ragged thumbnail, he couldn't be sure, but he felt the familiar faint sting of skin splitting, a thin trickle of blood seeping down his cheek. Ryoga's triumphant smirk was the last straw for Ranma, who deliberately wiped his cheek clean and then licked the blood from his fingers. "That's it," he declared casually, snapping his tethered arm up to form a fist. "No more Mr. Nice Guy..."
From his own seat under a nearby tree, safely out of the way of the riff raff, Kuno smirked to himself. Kuno recognized that tone of Ranma's from his first ignominious encounter, and Kuno was looking forward to seeing his rival put this stranger in his place. Besides, it would be interesting to see just how far Ranma could really push himself...
Ryoga, in comparison, simply scoffed. "Oh, so now you get serious?" he jeered before letting out an outraged yell. "Don't make me laugh!", snapping out in another open-fingered punch at Ranma's face - only to go straight through it! Ranma's visage faded out of sight like it had never been there, and then...
It would take the martially adept who were present there several minutes to work it out in the aftermath that Ranma had ducked beneath Ryoga's thrust, leaping off the ground and somehow swinging his whole body through the gap between Ryoga's legs, going so fast that not only had he left an after-image, but he used the momentum to reach his feet up to Ryoga's shoulders, hooking onto them for leverage before contracting his legs and pulling his thighs into Ryoga's back with such force that he knocked Ryoga to his knees.
At the moment it happened, though, most would have blinked and then, somehow, Ranma would have been sitting on Ryoga's upper back, with the startled challenger forced to all fours on the ground below him.
From his perch, Ranma twisted around and smirked down at Ryoga over his shoulder. "So, Ryoga? What should I do with you know?" he jokingly asked.
Head pressed to the ground, Ryoga snarled toothily. "C-curse you, Saotome!" he spat, his anger rising to new heights as Ranma literally rubbed Ryoga's nose in his failure to pin down his rival.
"Looks like Ranma's got this in the bag after all," Ryonami added.
Nabiki nodded mutely, a faint smile playing on her lips as her heart lifted; she'd never felt so relieved to not be making money before.
But they'd counted Ryoga out too soon! Even Ranma was impressed when, with a roar of fury, Ryoga lifted his legs skyward, shifting into a one-armed handstand that had him almost perfectly vertical, even with Ranma still perched on his shoulders. Then, with another great shout of defiance, Ryoga thrust himself into the sky, a hand-spring leap that saw him and Ranma carried into the air several times higher than any man was tall!
As the audience gaped and marveled, Ranma and Ryoga came apart in mid-air. Ryoga tried to kick at Ranma twice as they turned through the air, but Ranma was far more adept at mid-air combat; he effortlessly evaded Ryoga's comparatively clumsy blows, and then shifted in close enough to deliver a powerful kick to Ryoga's ribcage. He plunged head-first to the ground, turning the descent to his advantage; he caught himself with just one hand, much like Ryoga had done before, and curled his legs. With a deft tug of his arm, he used Ryoga's own cable-cuffs against him, pulling the Eternally Lost Boy head-first into a position where he could mule-kick him squarely in the face.
Ryoga only just managed to forearms in position to block Ranma's kick, but it still hit him hard enough to send him flying back through the air. Once again, Ranma turned the cable to his advantage, letting it pull him along with Ryoga, then grabbing it and yanking on the cable in order to descend in a powerful diving kick that Ryoga, again, only just barely blocked. It still sent Ryoga crashing to his back on the ground - not too far from Akane, in fact. It was an impact that would have stunned many fighters, but Ryoga was made of sterner stuff. Spotting his umbrella, he dove across the ground for it, covering the distance in one mighty leap before scrambling to his feet.
Now it was Ryoga's turn to run; he fled for the fenceline, Ranma hot on his heels, and shot up; his first mighty leap wasn't enough to clear the fence entirely, but he kicked off of the metallic links and used that to propel himself further upwards, soaring over the top of the fence - and where he went, Ranma followed.
The excited audience quickly scrambled to follow as Ryoga bounded off, Ranma springing along behind him. But they couldn't keep up, because not only were the two fighters moving faster than the schoolkids could run, but they were bouncing around as erratically as drunken fleas as Ryoga's abysmal sense of direction manifested itself once again. This led to the students breaking up into various clusters as they tried to figure out which direction the fighters had gone...
"Hey! Ryoga! What's going on, you turn chicken? You forget, we're chained together, moron! Even you can't lose me!" Ranma called to his rival, not bothering to hide his contempt.
"Who're you calling chicken!?" Ryoga roared, whirling about to face Ranma. This time, Ranma met him strike for strike, whirling around the Eternally Lost Boy's own blows and delivering punishing punches and kicks to his slower, if tougher, opponent.
Now Ryoga found himself being driven back under Ranma's attacks, frustration and resentment boiling in his mind as they bounded back and forth around the school. Had Ranma been playing with him this whole time?! The thought burned in his guts like he'd swallowed hot coals. "Take this!" he shouted, trying to intercept a diving Ranma with a thrust from his trusty umbrella. The blow failed to catch his attacker, with Ranma's foot landing square on Ryoga's face, making him stagger back and flinch as the impact rattled his teeth... still, he did manage to take some satisfaction at the sound of fabric tearing; at least this time, Ranma hadn't come off clean!
As Ryoga opened his eyes and rubbed his aching nose, he took in the sight of Ranma, who was staring down at the long, diagonal cut across his shirt with dismay. "Hey! You just wrecked my favorite shirt, Ryoga!" he complained.
Ryoga smirked, enjoying the sight of Ranma's dismay. "This is a duel, you coward! Don't you start talking like a girl!" he mocked him.
Had Nabiki been present, she would have made a pithy comment about Ryoga touching the Jusenkyo button. But she wasn't present at the moment, so the only sign Ryoga had of the mistake he made was the icy glint in Ranma's eyes as he scowled darkly at his former classmate.
"Who're you calling a girl?! I'm a guy!" he roared, with a vehemence that took Ryoga more than a little aback, to say the least, and then launched himself at Ryoga so quickly that Ryoga barely managed to block Ranma's kick in time - and it still landed with enough force to send Ryoga flying backwards with such velocity that he felt the cable pull taut - and then snap!
Ryoga dug his heels in, skidding to a stop, but then looked at Ranma with shock - when did Ranma get that strong?! Had he really underestimated him so much? But he didn't have long to contemplate it, because Ranma was still coming after him with what looked like murder in his eye.
"Ryoga! You take that back!" Ranma shouted, leaping towards his foe. Ryoga sprang away to the side to try and get some distance, but Ranma would not be denied. "Take it back I said!" Ranma bellowed, launching a diving kick at his foe - who jumped away at the last moment, leaving Ranma on a collision course with one of the school's drinking fountains!
"Nabiki, look, over there!" Kikuko said, pointing to the sudden geyser spraying high into the air.
"That's Ranma alright - come on ladies, double-time it!" Nabiki said, already to catch up with her errant fiance. Ranma and cold water... talk about mixing oil and fire!
With amazing grace, Ryoga wielded his umbrella like a shield, keeping the spray of the broken fountain from touching him as he dropped back down to earth. A huddled human form suddenly leapt out of the gushing waters, shooting past him, and he automatically followed it with his gaze as they both touched down on the ground, spinning to face... Ranma?!
"Come on an' fight, Ryoga!" the figure snapped, arms up in a classic attack pattern.
But Ryoga could only stare; this new figure was a woman! And there was no denying that - even if her soaking wet shirt wasn't clinging to every curve like its life depended on it, a great rip in her shirt had her nipples and underboobs exposed for all the world to see. "W-who-who the heck are you?" he gasped feebly.
In answer, she simply leapt at him! "Shut up an' fight me!" She shrieked, then delivered a snap-kick straight across Ryoga's face, using the momentum to flip herself backwards to land on her feet in a fighting posture.
Instinctively, Ryoga pressed a clenched fist to his bruised lip, staring at the... stranger? ...incredulously. "Ranma? Is it you?" he gawked.
"Just who did ya think it was, ya stupid jerk?!" she snarled.
And that was when Nabiki and her henchwomen arrived. "Ranma! Your blouse!" Nabiki called out.
Ranma glanced down instinctively, then let out a startled noise of shock and hastily covered the rip in her shirt, blushing as she did. It was one thing to let Nabiki see her in this state, but that didn't mean she wanted to be flashing the whole school!
"Ranma? You're..." Ryoga began, uncertain himself of what he actually wanted to say.
The aquatransexual visibly wilted, her rage guttering out and replaced with sorrow. "Go ahead an' make fun of me, Ryoga. I got no idea why you hate me so much! I just... I'm just... I'm just... I'm just trying to get by!" she finally cried out. "It's not easy having this curse for a body, y'know!" she spat, audibly disgusted with herself.
Ryoga scowled. He was about to tell this... this... girl-Ranma exactly what he thought of that, when the brunette girl with the pageboy haircut suddenly interjected.
"I know why you're going to hate him, Ranma. We have to declare Ryoga the winner of the match," she said.
"WHAT?!" both combatants roared, turning outraged expressions on Nabiki.
She just looked back at them coolly. "The rest of the school saw your little watershow and is on their way here. We can't tell them that the match is still on unless we out your little problem to the whole school, Ranma. So what's more important; your pride as a fighter, or your pride in your manhood?" she asked.
Ryoga stared between the two girls. Ranma looked visibly wounded - more than he'd ever seen the boy - girl - whatever! She was biting her lip and glaring at Nabiki, who simply gave her a cool look in response. But as more and more students came running up, noisily chattering about whatever unimportant things were on their minds, Ranma finally made her mind up. Clenching her shirt closed with her hands, she turned and ran away as fast as she could.
...Strange, Ryoga could have sworn he saw a glint of a tear on her cheek, though.
But all he could do was stand and watch her fleeing form, tasting ash in his mouth. Despite what Nabiki began assuring the students gawking at him, this was no victory... and he was not going to let it end like this...
Late that night, at the Tendo Dojo...
The susurrus of gentle yet persistent rain filled the air; it was late at night, when all normal people were tucked up in their beds. But not Ryoga Hibiki. No, he had a mission to complete...
His memories still burned with the indignation of that afternoon, of having his rightful victory cheated out of him by that strange girl - Nabiki Tendo, that was her name - and Ranma's own sense of modesty. Oh, how it had rankled to see Ranma running away from their man-to-man fight, just so he wouldn't have to reveal to his idiot schoolmates that he turned into a girl when splashed with cold water! But Ryoga had no intent of choking on his false victory.
He might not be good at following directions, but he could follow people. He'd stalked Nabiki ever since she'd finished dealing up with the betting ring she had apparently been running on his and Ranma's fight - obviously, she'd made Ranma run off so she could make a profit, because most of the fools at Furinkan had been betting on Ryoga's hated rival. She'd led him all over town all afternoon, and more than once, he'd wondered if she was somehow aware of his stalking her. But no; she was just a stupid girl doing stupid girl things.
But it still meant that it was dinner time when they'd arrived at the Tendo Dojo. Ryoga had waited down the block, watching patiently; he'd thought about just charging up and demanding that Ranma finish the fight at last, but he was smarter than that. No more interference or audiences; this time it would be just him and Ranma.
Puddles splashed beneath his feet as he prowled down the street to the Tendo Dojo's gates. Clutching a pair of walnuts left over from his meager dinner, he scowled to himself. "Finally! Oh, the horrors I've had to endure to get here...but tonight is when my suffering ends! Ranma Saotome... today is the day you go to your final reward!" he vowed, crushing the walnuts with one mighty squeeze of his fist… before picking out the meat and eating it because food was food.
Thus fortified, and quiet as a ninja, he sprang over the gate and landed on the house's front walkway. With a stealthiness that would have legitimately impressed Ranma, Ryoga slipped quietly into the house, heading straight up the stairs and hoping that this would lead him to Ranma's room. Passing by western-style doors adorned with nameplates, he reached a room with a more traditional sliding door, and slid it open.
For once, fortune was with him! His dark-adjusted eyes meant that he could clearly see the form of Ranma, sprawled out upon a futon. And also, weirdly, a massive panda snoring softly from a second futon next to his. In fact, he was sure he recognized it as the panda that had been sweeping outside of that chiropractor's last week... had Ranma traded his father for a pet panda or something? Not a bad bargain, he had to admit; something about Genma had always put his hackles up as a kid...
Ryoga stopped and shook his head fiercely; what was he doing?! He'd come here for a reason! He slunk over to the head of Ranma's futon, where he whispered, "Wake up! Ranma, it's me - let's fight!"
Ranma didn't even stir in his sleep. Irked at being 'ignored', Ryoga tried again. "Come on! Wake up already!" he hissed, raising the volume of his voice to try and get through to his slumbering foe.
Again, all he was greeted with was some soft snoring. Now truly perturbed, Ryoga crouched down and drew back his fist. "Wake UP!" he snapped , barely managing to keep his voice even remotely down as he tried to punch Ranma in the head.
Except that Ranma somehow chose that moment to roll over to the side, so all Ryoga achieved was putting his fist through the pillow and into the floor. Glaring at Ranma, Ryoga tried another punch - and this time Ranma rolled back the other way at the last moment!
'What the hell... how can anyone dodge in their sleep like that?' Ryoga wondered to himself, incredulity momentarily edging aside his rage. But only for the moment. His ire renewed once more Ryoga leaned over Ranma and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Wake up, stupid!"
...Ranma didn't even blink. Had it been in an anime, Ryoga would have laughed at it, but as it was happening to him, it most certainly wasn't funny!
"Rrrowrr!" Came a deep rumbling groan from behind Ryoga. He glanced over to the side at the panda, which was now sitting upright in its futon and plainly glaring at Ryoga, who glowered back in wordless challenge.
The panda rose to its hindlegs and waddled over to the window, delicately sliding it open... then, before Ryoga could realize what was happening, it charged at him, snatching up Ryoga and Ranma alike before bodily throwing them out through the window! Ryoga managed to whip his umbrella into a defensive position, shielding himself from the rain and using it like a parachute to gently glide back down to earth, whilst Ranma sailed inelegantly through the air and landed in the pond with a splash.
Seconds ticked past as Ryoga rose to his feet, eyes fixed on the pond, and he felt the glimmerings of a morbid fascination for Ranma as his hated foe failed to surface. How could anyone sleep through that?! But finally, the surface of the water parted as Ranma - now in the form of the buxom redhead from that afternoon, sat up and coughed out water.
And then she spotted Ryoga, and quickly scrambled to her feet. "Ryoga? What the heck are you doing here in the middle of the night?" she asked drowsily, and the genuinely curious tone of her voice only made Ryoga more furious.
"You shut up! Does revenge know night or day?" Ryoga asked, indulging his dramatic side if only to regain some mental equilibrium after being tossed out the window by a panda. Ye gods; did Ranma just attract the concept of 'random' or something?
Ranma waded through the pool and stepped onto the muddy grass. "This has gone too far! What could I have possibly done to make you so mad?" she demanded flatly, staring fixedly at Ryoga and making it clear to the Lost Boy no fight would be forthcoming without an explanation preceding it.
Having heard that same question time and time again, Ryoga reluctantly conceded that maybe his hated foe legitimately didn't know. So, he decided to educate her before he beat her within an inch of her life. "Listen! These may be your last moments on this earth!" he proclaimed - a lightning bolt flashing across the sky with perfect dramatic timing.
"After you skipped out on our duel, I followed you all the way to China!" he spat, with yet another perfectly timed thunderbolt accentuating his words.
Boy, the weather here sure is convenient Ryoga noted to himself.
With the rain pouring down and his soaked shirt clinging to him like a second skin, accentuating the jiggling orbs weighing on his chest, it took Ranma barely an instant to realize what Ryoga was insinuating. On any other day, he probably would have sympathized with Ryoga, even tried to commiserate with somebody that he had always considered a friend. But on this day, he was still sore from their duel earlier, when he had been forced to experience the humiliation of retreating with his proverbial tail between his legs in order to not reveal his gender-bending status to his classroom.
So, instead, Ranma laughed loudly. "You went to Jusenkyo! Oh, man, only you could be that dumb, Ryoga!" the aquatransexual cackled. "I bet you dove into one of the springs on purpose, thinking it was just a place to wash off!" the boy-turned-girl jeered.
"Shut up!" Ryoga roared, eyes bulging with fury. "Don't you dare laugh at me, Ranma! You might have been lucky enough to walk away with a gorgeous body like that, but my life has been ruined because of you!" And with that, he charged Ranma, clearly in no mood for further talk... which was fine by Ranma; she was ripe and ready to take out her spleen on Ryoga as well by this point.
Unlike at Furinkan, this time, both combatants were on the offensive. Punches, kicks and other strikes flowed fluidly, interspersed with dodges, blocks and counters. Ranma leapt aside as Ryoga's kick shattered a stone ornament (she idly wondered what it was, suspecting a bird-feeder, but then wrote it off as unimportant) into pieces with an almighty clattering of crumbling stone. Even though Ryoga was handicapped by his need to keep the rain off with his umbrella, Ranma was similarly held back by the limitations of an unfamiliar body - besides, she had too much pride to try and take advantage of Ryoga's curse by attacking his umbrella... at least, for the moment.
Thunder cracked above their heads, lightning piercing the rain to provide brief flashes of illumination. Only two fighters as skilled as they could have so easily coped with the extreme environment and its constant impediments - slippery grass and unstable mud underfoot, disorientating thunder and lightning strobe-lighting the vision-straining darkness, the hiss of rain in the ear clouding their hearing and making it harder for each to pinpoint where the other was. All conspiring but failing to interrupt the rivals in their duel. Grunts and battle cries fell from their lips as they clashed, the tide of battle ebbing and flowing without cease.
It was the first real fight Ranma had actually been able to have since he'd arrived in Nerima, and privately, she was loving it - there was only so far she could push herself with just her father and his intermittent sparring sessions, after all.
...So of course they were suddenly interrupted when something came whizzing through the air... and caught Ryoga right in the back of the head as he was leaping in to attack Ranma. It knocked him flying sideways - Ranma thought it looked like a set of hand-weights, but couldn't be sure in the dark and rain- which caused Ryoga to lose grip on his umbrella.
The Eternally Lost Boy wrapped his arms in front of his face, an instinctive effort to deny the inevitable, but in vain; grunting in dismay, he sprang away, leaping over the boundary wall and then vanishing behind it.
"Ryoga!" Ranma called out - not entirely sure herself if she was bothered at the fight being interrupted or by something else that was hard to place. She thought she heard Kasumi's voice from behind her, but Ranma was already in motion, bounding over the wall in hot pursuit. She picked a street at random and sprinted down it, calling Ryoga's name - but all Ranma found was Ryoga's clothing, sprawled empty across the sodden pavement.
"Wow, he really did take the plunge... poor slob," Ranma muttered, the fight having purged enough of her rage to let her nicer side rear its head back up. "But why're his clothes all here? Looks like he must have shrunk right out of them... huh, he was ranting about my curse making me 'lucky'. What could he turn into?" the aquatransexual murmured, idly picking through Ryoga's clothes and confirming that, yes, he had left everything behind... the redhead cringed at having almost touched a certain undergarment.
A sudden growling from behind her made Ranma spin around. From an alley behind her, a dog emerged, eyes glowing like witchfire in the dark, teeth bared as it growled at her, coat bristling in rage.
"Ryoga..." Ranma breathed softly, her face gaining a tinge of sympathy. "Easy now, Ryoga; I didn't come here to fight, okay? I want to help you, I promise," she assured her transformed rival, calling on all of her fairly considerable experience in dog-whispering to try and soothe the formerly human canine.
The dog continued to growl for a minute or two, but then slowly calmed down, padding cautiously over to Ranma. Who had to resist the urge to scratch it behind the ears by reminding herself that this was Ryoga... but it was so hard; Ranma liked dogs, at least when they wanted to be friends with him too.
She gently extended her hand, and the transformed Ryoga hesitantly sniffed it before giving it a lick, bringing a smile to Ranma's lips. "That's a good boy... come on, Ryoga, we'll get you in where it's dry and change you back, okay?"
Taking the lack of any protests as a good sign, Ranma bundled up Ryoga's clothes, slung his pack over her shoulder, then took the dog by its collar - why did Ryoga even have one of those? She hadn't seen it on him when he was human - and led it back to the Tendo Dojo.
Once there, she left Ryoga's belongings in the genkan - along with Ryoga the dog himself - and hurried to put a kettle on to boil, grabbing a towel and some old newspaper before going back and getting Ryoga. Who was obviously much calmer now, since he actually waited for her to get back and lead him into the living room, where she sat him on the newspaper to try and keep the wet fur off of the floor.
Ranma sat down unceremoniously next to her old rival, sitting flat on her rump with her legs sprawled out under the chabudai as she tried to dry the worst of the rain from her hair. "I feel bad for you Ryoga, really, I do," she assured the dog. "But you gotta stop attacking me in the middle of the night! I'm only a guest here, it's rude to wake up the others for fights like ours!" she scolded him.
"Where'd that dog come from? What happened to Ryoga?" came a feminine voice from behind Ranma, making her spin around to face Akane, who'd just walked into the room.
Normally, Ranma would have replied to her, but her attention was a little distracted by the strange black creature tucked up in the youngest Tendo's arms. "Hey, where'd you get the weird-looking pig?" she asked, pointing at it for emphasis.
The little oinker squealed at Ranma's words and began to writhe and struggle in Akane's arms - almost angrily, but no, that was impossible. Akane shushed it gently and spun it around to face her, cuddling it like a child as she gently said, "Be a good piggy now; we'll get some nice medicine and put it on your booboos," she assured it as she petted its back.
Ranma watched as it nuzzled into Akane's bosom, piggish forelimbs wrapped around the youngest Tendo's comparatively sizable breasts, tilting her head quizzically. "Hey, I think it's blushing!" she pointed out in amazement.
"Don't be stupid," Akane dryly shot back, snuggling the pig in harder in response to the outlandish idea Ranma had. Even if he wasn't all bad, he was still evidently a thick boy still
Curiosity piqued, Ranma stood up and plucked the piglet from Akane's arms, spinning it around to face her. "You dirty little pig," she teased it. "Hah! It's a he!" she chortled as she made up a very distinctive set of organs on its lower torso. When Akane stepped around to her side, clearly unable to resist her curiosity, Ranma adjusted her grip to give Akane a better view, making the youngest Tendo clasp her hands over her mouth in a vain attempt to hide her grin as she giggled, "You're right!"
The pig squealed in what was unmistakable indignation at this treatment, fighting its way out of Ranma's grasp and lunging at her face. Caught off-guard, Ranma squalled in turn as its sharp little hooves painfully scratched at her face - only when Akane snatched it up and hugged it back to her bosom did it relent in its assault.
Ranma cast a sour look at the pig, but refrained from pummeling it in retaliation - she didn't really feel like getting into a fight with Akane.
A minute or two later, Akane was gently rubbing a large bump on the back of the pig's head with a cotton ball soaked in iodine. As she did that, she glanced over at the dog sitting next to Ranma. "Come to think of it, Ranma, I know I've seen that dog before," she remarked.
"You... have, huh?" Ranma repeated warily. She glanced over at the dog, considered her options, and made her decision. 'Don't worry, Ryoga; I'll keep your secret. It's the warrior's code, right?' she thought to herself. 'It's funny, though; even as a dog, you still look like Ryoga. Those bloodshot eyes are a dead giveaway...' she mused.
"Ah! Now I remember!" Akane suddenly spoke up, making Ranma start a bit. "That's the Yamatas' dog, Bess!"
"It's who?" Ranma blurted out, gaze snapping over to Akane, now thoroughly bamboozled.
"Yeah, I dogsat for them once... here Bess!" she chirped, holding out a hand palm-side up.
The dog promptly let out a happy little bark and immediately put its paw in her palm, tail wagging.
'...The hell?' Ranma thought to herself, staring at the sight. "Excuse me a moment," she said, and then quickly went to the kitchen to retrieve the now-hot kettle. Back in the living room, she put her hand on Akane's head and forcibly turned her gaze away from the dog, saying, "Look away for a sec, will ya?" as she did so. Ignoring Akane's obvious bemusement, she promptly poured the kettle on the dog... and wound up with nothing more than a very confused canine, which promptly shook itself dry.
Ranma blinked in surprise. "Well... that's odd," she finally conceded. "And here I thought... ah well," she mused to herself, starting to head out of the living room.
"Where are you going?" Akane asked, rising up to partially follow her.
"To take a hot bath. All that running around in the rain practically froze me half to death," Ranma explained, pointing out to the still downpouring storm.
At that moment, the pig in Akane's arms sneezed, and she giggled at the adorable sound. "Well, then can you take him with you?" she asked Ranma politely.
"Take a bath with a pig?" Ranma repeated in a dubious tone, not exactly thrilled by the prospect. Had she paid attention, she would have seen the pig likewise frantically shaking its own head.
Akane simply smiled and held the pig out insistently. "Take him," she entreated complete with batting eyelashes for 'dramatic effect' , and Ranma reluctantly conceded; she and Akane weren't fighting like they had been during his first week at the Tendo house, but she still wouldn't say that they liked each other, and thusly getting further in her someday sister-in-law's good books wasn't to be sniffed at.
The pig was not pleased with the decision, but frankly, Ranma was well and truly past caring what the animal thought, especially given her face was still stinging from hooves being raked like claws over her tender skin.
Once Ranma reached the bathroom, she pinned the squirming piglet under her foot and began shucking off her clothes, wondering to herself as she did, "So... if he's not the dog... then where did that idiot Ryoga run off to?"
As she filled the bath with hot water, the pig only fought all the harder, forcing Ranma to really struggle to hold onto it. "Hey, settle down already! A bath's not gonna kill ya," she told the squirming, threshing, squealing animal. Finally, the tub was sufficiently full that she grabbed it and bodily submerged it into the water...
...And then, moments later, the head and torso of a naked and very angry human youth emerged from the steamy water, brown eyes glaring straight into Ranma's own shocked-wided blue ones.
"R...Ryoga?" she gasped, jaw at full extension.
Ryoga just glowered back. The two stared at each other, Ranma trying to put her reaction into words, but completely failing. Neither of them really noticing or caring that they were sans clothing
"Ranma? Make sure you wash him all over. Especially behind the ears," Akane called from the doorway into the bathroom.
It was such a contextually incongruous request... but it at least managed to jolt Ranma back into her senses enough to hesitantly ask, "So then... you're the... pig?"
"You're dead!" Ryoga snapped back almost redundantly, lashing out with a punch that Ranma only prevented from hitting her in the face by hastily interposing a wash-bucket.
"Wait!" She pleaded; with her ire gone, Ranma's desire for context returned all the stronger. "How'd this happen to you, Ryoga?! Why in the world would you go anywhere near a place like Jusenkyo? Talk to me!"
Visibly seething, Ryoga spat out, "I've endured unbearable torments chasing after you! China's a big place, but it's even bigger when you're crossing it on foot! Mile after mile after mile..."
Ranma chose not to point out that she'd hiked across China on foot herself, since in fairness Ryoga would have wandered a lot further than she had due to his bad sense of direction.
"I don't know how long I wandered... months, maybe? I chased after every rumor and story I could that seemed to point the way to you and your father. And then, one fateful day, I found myself on a cliff overlooking a valley full of springs... when this huge panda comes barreling out of the underbrush and charging right at me! I leapt to avoid it... and that's when this crazy girl in a gi comes leaping through the air, screaming at the panda!"
Ryoga was gritting his teeth so hard that Ranma found herself morbidly fascinated by the notion of whether or not they could take the pressure...or if they'd shatter in his mouth "That stupid girl smacked right into me and swatted me back down to earth! I hit the ground so hard, the cliff-face broke under my hand and I lost my balance, tumbling over the edge and into one of the springs down below... And then... that's when I.. that's when I realized that... I'd been cast into hell!"
Ranma would have sworn Ryoga's eyes were literally burning red at that moment.
"I don't know how, but I'd gone into that pool a man, and reached the surface as a pig! I had no idea what was going on - I could barely control my body - and I floundered in that pool for what felt like an hour before the panda from before returned. He pulled me from the spring... and then carried me to this Chinese man, who set about getting ready to cook me as sweet 'n' sour pork!" Ryoga shuddered in a mixture of fury and terror at the memory of almost being turned into a popular gaijin side dish before continuing his none-too-quiet rant. "He was going on all the time about how there was a Spring of Drowned Pig - Eiton'niichuan - formed when a pig drowned at Jusenkyo 1200 years ago, even as he sharpened up this great big cleaver..."
Ryoga visibly shivered in terror at the memory before collecting himself once again. "He actually looked me in the eye and wondered if maybe I'd fallen into Eiton'iichuan - and then he laughed it off as a joke before he dropped me into a huge pot full of boiling hot water!"
It would later strike Ranma that if the Jusenkyo guide's first action had been to give Ryoga a super-heated bath instead of just cutting his throat, then that meant the guide had probably suspected Ryoga could be something more than met the eye. But at the moment, she was too caught up in Ryoga's tale to point it out, and to be fair Ryoga probably wouldn't care either.
The stricken boy shook his head, visibly trying to expel the memories. "My god! If the hot water hadn't changed me back, they'd have had me for dinner!" he gasped. Then he glared at Ranma once again, snarling bitterly, "This is all your fault, Ranma! If only you'd shown up to take your beating like a man..."
"Now wait just a minute, Ryoga!" Ranma snapped back at him, his sympathy evaporating like hot bourbon at the renewed accusation. "How is any of this even remotely my fault?! You're the one who decided to chase after me to China over some dumb bread feud! It's not like I was the one who knocked you into Eiton'niichuan! You just said so yourself, it was some panda and a girl..."
The boy-turned trailed off as his words stirred his memory. A panda and a girl? On the cliffs over Jusenkyo? Oh... oh, no, no-no-no! Ryoga couldn't be right to blame this on him! He remembered chasing Pops' fuzzy butt all over Jusenkyo for an hour, with vague plans of dragging him back and throwing him in the Nyanniichuan, but he swore he didn't remember running into Ryoga there!
But... he'd been so enraged, literally blind with fury... was it really possible? Oh, kami-damn them all to the deepest hells... He was so screwed if Ryoga figured out that Ranma really had been the one to knock him into Eiton'niichuan!
...And of course, the universe chose that moment to stick another fork in Ranma's heart. The door slid open and Genma walked in, still in his panda form. He took one long look at the sight - his naked son-turned-daughter on all fours next to the bath, a naked boy in the bath - then held up a sign with "pardon me!" scrawled on it in his messy handwriting and walked straight back out again.
"That panda again... what are you even doing with a... panda?!" Ryoga's tone changed from curiously conversational to suspicion as he looked back and forth between the door and Ranma. Ranma flinched back, smiling weakly and instinctively trying to look cute as the ceramic tiles under Ryoga's fingers cracked and splintered. "It was you! You're the one who knocked me in!" Ryoga screamed in unholy ire, his voice actually cracking with how harshly he shrieked. "I'm gonna kill you!"
Ranma yelped in panic, instinctively scrabbling across the floor to the shower and grabbing for the water tap as Ryoga leapt from the bath. She felt his hand close around her pigtail and painfully yank her head back, making her cry out, "Wait a minute! Listen!" she pleaded, babbling as she managed to fight through the pain, grab the cold water tap, and twist it on full-bore, sending cold water cascading down over the pair of them from the spray-tap mounted above them.
"What? Ah, that's cold! No fair Ranma!" Ryoga shouted - but it was too late for him to escape.
Ranma felt the fingers disappear from around her pigtail, replaced by a weird weight upon her rump. She turned around, and saw Ryoga the pig perched on her butt with a look of high-dudgeon on his porcine snoot, and smiled weakly at him. "We'll, ah, talk a little bit later, okay? After you've cooled down, of course. 'kay, Ryoga?" she meekly assured him.
The pig simply snarled, growling as fiercely as little porcine vocal cords would allow it, and then it leapt at Ranma's face!
Once more, Ranma went tumbling to the floor... but this time, there was no misplaced sense of mercy holding back Ranma's reciprocal wrath. The boy-turned-girl tore the boy-turned-pig from her face and hurled it across the bathroom, and then sprang to attack in kind!
Meanwhile, Akane was sitting in the living room, waiting for Ranma to wash the pig and bring it back to her. She'd always wanted a pet, and although it had been aggressive initially when it snuck into her room, she could tell that it liked her too with how quickly it'd calmed down. And then she heard the sound of running feet, cursing and desperate porcine squeals. "What are those two doing?!" she asked, sticking her head out into the hall.
And then her new pet pig came running for its life down the hall, with Ranma in hot pursuit. "Come back here, ya little runt! Do you think yer the only one that's suffering!?" Ranma snarled, flinging a bathing bucket at the pig with such accuracy that it bounced off the back of its head with an audible crack, making the pig whirl around to face the aquatransexual at Akane's side. "You scratched me, you little beast! You ruined my perfect complexion!" Ranma snapped at the pig.
When Nabiki heard about that line later and asked for the story, Ranma would explain that it was a matter of principle; yes, he hated turning into a girl, but if he had to do so, then he should at least look good!
Akane, understandably given her limited perspective of what was going on, was horrified. "Ranma! What do you think you're doing?" she shrieked in righteous outrage. What did her sister's twisted fiance think he - er, she was doing, abusing her pet-to-be like that?!
"Oh, you little coward! Look at you; hiding behind Akane!" Ranma snapped in return - completely ignoring Akane to instead berate the pig.
"Ranma!" Akane scolded her again, before a strange growling made her glance down. Dumbfounded, she watched as the pig hunkered down on all fours, growling at Ranma, before suddenly launching itself at the boy-turned-girl like a teeny pork missile!
Much as it had done when she'd first met it, the pig bounced off of the walls, floor and ceiling, moving like a high-speed pinball, trying to tackle Ranma before she could react. In fact, Akane was actually almost impressed at how well the pig was doing, getting in several strikes that even the vaunted Ranma couldn't block. But her pride changed to horror as Ranma suddenly snatched it out of the air.
"Little runt!" Ranma snarled, then slammed the pig face-first into the floor, much to Akane's horror.
"Stop it!" she cried, charging forward and using a move her father had made her promise to only use when she had to; she grabbed one of Ranma's breasts in her hand and squeezed it as hard as she could. The results were immediate and quite gratifying, as Ranma let out a shriek of what almost sounded like legitimate pain before collapsing limp on the floor. Ignoring Ranma, Akane instead scooped up the bruised piglet, which was visibly weeping after its rough handling by Ranma. "Oh, poor thing... look how scared you are," Akane murmured, as much to herself as to the piglet. Hugging it to her breast, she petted its head as she stood up. "Come on, baby, let's go," she said.
"Just hold it! Where are you taking him?" Ranma shouted, springing up off the floor to interrupt her.
"We're going to bed," Akane snapped firmly, glowering at Ranma and enjoying the stab of dark delight at the way his-her breast was already visibly bruising from her attack of before.
"But you can't!" Ranma protested.
"Just watch me," Akane spat back. "I have nothing to say to an animal abuser like you!" she scowled, then turned her back on the boy-turned girl firmly. "Don't worry baby; I won't leave you with that nasty Ranma," she assured her new pet. "Be a good boy and stop crying, okay?" she asked, and gave it a sweet little kiss on the nose.
Much to her delight, that settled him right down, and she happily skipped off back to her bedroom, leaving a very gobsmacked Ranma in her wake.
"...Unbelievable. And pops calls me stubborn!" she finally said. She was sorely tempted to just let Akane keep the pig - especially after the titty-twister she'd just been given. But... and here she sighed; it wouldn't be fair to Nabiki to leave her little sister vulnerable to Ryoga creeping on her like that. So she'd have to do something. And if Akane wouldn't listen to reason... well, there were ways to work around that.
A short time later, Ryoga was in heaven, lying in a warm, clean bed with the arms of a cute girl wrapped around him lovingly as she slept beside him. True, she thought he was a pet, but still, she'd kissed him! And she seemed to hate Ranma almost as much as he did, too! Yes, for once in his life, things were starting to look up...
Ryoga was just closing his eyes and allowing himself to drift off to sleep, visions of taking the sweet Akane Tendo out on a date after he'd stomped Ranma's face into the mud filling his mind, when he heard the sound of wind whistling through an open window, making the drapes flutter. He stirred from his sleep and looked towards the window - and what he saw made his blood freeze. Ranma Saotome had invaded Akane's room, perching in the window above her desk with a kettle clutched in one hand.
He sprang up onto all fours, growling, but Ranma simply brandished the kettle at him, which audibly sloshed as he shook it. "Unless you want me to blow your cover, be quiet, pig!" Ranma snapped in a whisper.
Reluctantly, Ryoga went still, and Ranma smirked. "That's a good piggy," he jeered, before putting the kettle down and reaching out to slowly ease Ryoga away from the bed by his bandanna...
Which was when Akane suddenly reached out in her sleep and snatched him away, pulling him into a tight embrace.
The two Jusenkyo-cursed boys blinked in mutual incredulity, and Ryoga wondered for a second if this would make Ranma give it up. Instead, Ranma tensed like a spring, and then snatched Ryoga out of Akane's arms too quickly for the sleeping girl to register. A pity for him that Ryoga had no intention of coming along quietly; he promptly sank his piggy teeth as deep into Ranma's hand as he could.
Ranma stiffed, clapping a hand over his mouth to muffle his cry of pain, and then hurled Ryoga bodily into a wall. But the Eternally Lost Boy (well, Pig) recovered in an instant and sprang at Ranma, once more turning himself into a bouncing bacony bullet.
To an outsider, it would have been quite a comical affair as the two hopped all over Akane's bedroom like drunken fleas... right up until Ranma caught his foot on a hand-weight that Akane had left carelessly lying on the floor. He whirled out his arms, trying to catch his balance...but Ryoga was already flying at his rival's head, and the impact caused Ranma to fall face first into Akane's bed, arm dropping heavily over Akane's shoulders.
Naturally, this woke up Akane... who was less than happy when her vision cleared and she realized Ranma was lying over her. "Ranma..." she growled.
Ranma sprang back as if he was lying face-down on a hot griddle. "No, wait! Akane, I'm sorry, it's not what you think!" he protested.
Akane simply slapped him across the face so hard that he tumbled to the floor. Then she leapt out of bed and grabbed her trusty shinai before she began to beat him savagely with it.
"No! Wait! You! It's him! It's Ryoga!" Ranma managed to blurt out, trying to speak through Akane's angry cries and his own exclamations of pain as the bundled bamboo rods painfully cracked against his back, shoulders and scalp.
"Where?! Where is Ryoga?!" Akane growled, face burning red with rage. "I don't see any Ryoga, I only see you, you animal!" she screamed, before picking him up and throwing him bodily through the closed window, sending him screaming through the air to a head-first crash landing against one of the boulders in the garden below. She stared out through the broken window, fists clenched and shoulders shaking in fury, before she pointedly turned her back on him. "He won't get away with this!" she screamed. "He won't, he won't!"
The next morning...
"What are you going to do about this, dad?! He was in my room in the middle of the night!" Akane screamed in fury.
"I... uh... I'm sure he must have had a good reason, Akane," Soun weakly protested, before glaring at Genma... who had the audacity to try and look innocent in the way only a panda could.
"What possible reason could there be? He's just a pervert! And you married him to my sister!" Akane snapped at her father, who was forcefully reminded of his wife's own ability to reach a truly towering rage when provoked.
"Yes, and he's never done anything remotely like this to her, now has he?" Soun desperately threw back, casting a hopeful look at Nabiki for backup.
"Daddy's... not wrong, Akane," the middle Tendo daughter slowly conceded. Ranma had never been anything but a gentleman with her. So... why was he breaking into Akane's room in the middle of the night? She glanced over at where Ranma would normally have been sitting, but this morning, there hadn't been a single sign of him - which Akane had vocally attributed to her driving him off the night before.
It just didn't make any sense to Nabiki... except, on a certain level, it did. Akane had always been the more attractive sister, and she and Ranma had basically had their first fight yesterday. When she'd come home after handling all the bets on the fight, Ranma had wanted nothing to do with her - he'd even deliberately sat away from her at dinner that night. It had been... surprisingly painful to see him putting such distance between them. And though she tried to deny it, she couldn't help but wonder if maybe Ranma wasn't changing his mind about which Tendo he wanted to marry...
She shook her head, trying to banish the thoughts, and pushed away her breakfast plate. "I have to get to school," she announced, cutting through... whatever stupid argument that her sister and her father were having. Before they could protest, she was out of the room, grabbing her schoolbag from where she'd left it in readiness for today and heading for the street.
She hit the pavement at a fair pace; not running, definitely not, but... a brisk power walk. Yes, that she would accept. On pure autopilot, she maneuvered around traffic and people, instinctively heading to Furinkan High School.
"Nabiki! Hey, Nabiki, wait up!" came a sudden voice - a familiar, masculine voice, that cut through the haze that had clouded her thoughts and brought her to a screeching halt.
She looked around, but she couldn't see the source at first, until he leapt down from whatever high perch he'd been using. "Oh. What is it, Ranma?"
He visibly flinched. "I... um... about last night..."
"Don't tell me; I can guess. You wanted to see if Akane would want to switch the engagement, right?" Nabiki replied bitterly, unable to hold back the doubts and hurt that had been weighing on her all morning.
Ranma looked visibly startled. "What?! Where in the world did you hear a crazy thing like that?!" he asked, back to being confused as he seemed to so frequently be lately.
"It doesn't take a genius to figure out why you'd be sneaking into my little sister's room after we had a fight," Nabiki dryly explained, keeping her face turned away so Ranma wouldn't be able to use his puppy eyes at her. "I didn't think you'd be that sore over my betting ring on the side..."
"What fight?!" Ranma snapped, looking totally lost. "Who's sore? I mean, yeah, I wasn't exactly happy about losing a fight in that way, but I was ticked off at Ryoga, not you!"
Now it was Nabiki's turn to feel surprised. "You... weren't mad at me?" she asked, blinking slowly...'I may have miscalculated' she cunningly deduced
"Course not. It's not like you had me squirted to save your profit margins or something dumb like that," Ranma scoffed, waving away the idea of her stacking a bet like that. "You're way too nice for that."
Nabiki couldn't help but notice that having her sense of morality be genuinely complimented like that was an odd feeling...
"I was avoiding you last night because... well, I ain't exactly a good loser, but I was never blaming you for it. It's this stupid curse, after all," Ranma explained in a more level tone of voice now that they got that mixup out of the way. "Now, as for switching the engagements... where the heck did ya hear an idea as stupid as that?" he demanded a bit irately at the idea of being seen in such a fickle light.
"I... well..." Nabiki tried to find the words to explain the reasoning that had seemed so logically sound before, her traitorous cheeks flushing warmly in her embarrassment. "I thought... my sister has a lot of admirers..."
"Beats me why," Ranma huffed, rolling his eyes for good measure. "Why in the world would I wanna trade down from a girl like you? You're smart, you're fun to hang out with, you're cute, you've got a great smile... I'd have to be some kind of major-league dumbass to drop you for a short-tempered tomboy with the charm of a warthog with a bad tooth," he asserted.
Nabiki knew she shouldn't, but she couldn't help the giggle that slipped free at his less than flattering assessment of her little sister. "Careful, Ranma, or people might think that you actually like me," she teased him.
"An' why shouldn't they? You're my fiancee, after all," Ranma replied, grinning at her with a shameless, carefree smile that almost - but not quite - covered the way his own cheeks had reddened with embarrassment.
It was strange; minutes before she had been feeling sadder than she'd felt in ages, but now, she could hardly remember what she had been upset about. Light-hearted, Nabiki asked, "So, what happened last night?"
Ranma opened his mouth as if to answer, but then a furious feminine shout echoed to them from down the street.
"Leave my sister alone, you pervert!"
There was a sharp whistling noise, and then a sickeningly loud crack! Ranma collapsed bonelessly to the pavement as the stone Akane had thrown at him clattered to the ground in turn.
"Ranma!" Nabiki yelped instinctively, then turned her fiercest glower on her little sister as she came thundering up the street towards her. "What was that all about?!" she demanded.
"I stopped that pervert!" Akane protested, not sure why her sister was defending the creep.
"Yeah, you stopped him from telling me the real reason why he invaded your room last night!" Nabiki dryly retorted. "Didn't anyone ever tell you about not leaping before you look?"
"As if you could take anything a lech like him would say seriously!" Akane sneered, eyeing Ranma with contempt.
"You can't get all the facts unless you're willing to hear them first," Nabiki told her simply, before bending to try and lift Ranma. It... didn't go so well; Nabiki exercised fairly regularly to keep her weight under control, but she wasn't a powerhouse like her sister or her fiance, and she could barely support Ranma's weight on her shoulder as she heaved him up with a grunt of effort.
"What are you doing?" Akane asked her, not used to seeing Nabiki actually put physical effort into something. It was fascinating, in an almost surreal sort of way, really.
"Taking him to Dr. Tofu's, what's it look like? You really got him good with that rock, Akane!" Nabiki scolded her incredulously. "Now come and give me a hand - he weighs a ton!"
Akane rolled her eyes, and for a moment, considered disobeying Nabiki's command. Then she caught the look in her sister's eye which promised, if not physical pain, than a great deal of mental and emotional anguish, and hurried over to reluctantly hoist Ranma onto her own shoulders. If there was one thing she knew, it was that Nabiki could make her life miserable if she wanted, and right now, Nabiki looked mad enough to really get inventive...
At Dr. Tofu's Clinic...
Ranma groaned softly as he finally slipped back into consciousness, his skull still palpably throbbing. "What happened?" he moaned, before wincing at the pain his moan caused.
"Ah, you're awake! I was starting to worry... Akane really clocked you good," Nabiki chirped from his side, audibly relieved to see him up and about.
Ranma looked at her and blinked, still trying to gather his wits. "Nabiki? Where are we?"
"You're at my clinic. Nabiki and Akane brought you here for observation - you took a rather nasty crack to the head," a strange voice explained.
Ranma looked around, and realized he was lying on a clinic bed, with a young man - obviously the local chiropractor. "Oh, hi there. Sorry to have bothered you," he said, bowing his head as much as he dared when it felt like it was still ready to drop off.
"Oh, no problem! I'm Dr. Tofu Ono - and you're Ranma Saotome, right? Your father works for me here part-time. He's been a big help, especially when the children drop by." The man said, smiling warmly.
"He-he has been?" Ranma asked, too dumbstruck and scatter-brained not to be rude at the moment.
"Oh, yes. That panda transformation trick really amazes the little ones. He's really quite good with them. Now, how are you feeling, Ranma?"
"My head's aching... but other than that, I'm okay," Ranma slowly confessed, after allowing himself to take stock of the situation, although he was still processing the mind-boggling concept that his father could be...useful.
"Excellent! Here's an ice pack to help you recover. Do you think you'll be okay if I leave you alone for a moment? I have some paperwork to attend to," Dr. Tofu elaborated as he held out said ice pack for Ranma to take.
"Huh? Oh, sure, go ahead doc. We'll be fine," Ranma assured him as the wounded martial artist gingerly placed the ice pack on his swollen noggin.
The doctor smiled, gave Ranma another quick lookover and then wandered off into the office adjacent to the main room, leaving Ranma alone with Nabiki. The heir to the Saotome School gingerly pressed the cold bag further against his tender scalp, hissing in pain as he did. "Hoo, boy; she's not going to forgive me any time soon, is she?" he lamented.
"Akane's always been a 'punch first, apologize later' sort of girl, I'm afraid," Nabiki conceded. "Speaking of which..."
"Yeah, you would be wondering why this happened," Ranma sighed. "Long story short? It's all Ryoga's fault."
"Yes, I'm well aware of how that pest woke us up last night," Nabiki scowled.
"Yeah? You obviously didn't hear him telling me what this whole stupid feud was about, I take it?" Ranma asked monotonically .
"He finally told you?" Nabiki asked, intrigued despite herself; the answer to the random invader's presence was faaaar too enticing to resist.
"Yeah... turns out the moron chased me all the way to Jusenkyo," Ranma explained bitterly.
The words hung in the air, and Nabiki quickly realized just what Ranma was insinuating. "But... that's not your fault!" Nabiki protested. "Even if he did get himself cursed there, he surely can't blame you for that!"
"Yeah, well, except he claims that he got cursed because me an' pop knocked him into a spring whilst we were fighting after getting our own curses," Ranma retorted with a sour scowl.
"He claims?" Nabiki questioned, immediately seizing on that ambiguity.
"Well, after I took the plunge, I was pretty ticked off. Hell, blind with rage would probably be a better term for it," Ranma conceded slowly; it wasn't easy to admit to losing control like that, considering how much the 'Art' required self-restraint. "I don't remember doing it... but I can't dismiss the idea I did it, either," he elaborated.
"Figures," Nabiki sighed ruefully. "So, how does that lead to you sneaking into my baby sister's room in the middle of the night?"
Ranma gnawed at his lip for a moment, then replied hesitantly, "Did Akane have a new pet at breakfast? A little black pig with a tiger-striped bandana?"
"Yes...?" Nabiki acknowledged with equal reticence.
"Tell me, did that pig look familiar to you?" Ranma asked her.
Nabiki gave him a bemused look at that, wondering if maybe Akane had hit him more viciously than Dr. Tofu had been willing to admit. But then, she felt the pieces falling into place. "You're kidding..." she breathed. "Akane's new pet is Ryoga?!"
"Got it in one," Ranma cheered her in a sardonic tone, giving her a wave of his hand.
"But... why didn't you tell her?!"
"I did!" Ranma protested, wincing. "But she wouldn't listen to me! Just stormed off to her room with him - and after hitting me with the Claw of The Elderly Eagle, too!"
"...The what?!" Nabiki asked, looking at Ranma as if he'd just grown a second head.
Ranma flinched. "It's a... well, it's a cheap shot for fighting girls that pops taught me, and I guess your pops taught Akane too. You sort of... well... you grab a girl with a claw strike. Like this." He reached out one hand, fingers splayed and curled into a gripping claw, which he hovered over Nabiki's breast. "Then you squeeze and pull it as hard as you can..." he concluded, sounding mortified.
Nabiki would have been ashamed to admit it, but it took her a few moments to piece together what Ranma was telling her. Still, once it all slotted together, she winced in sympathy. Just thinking about Akane doing that to her... oh, kami, it made her eyes water! "I am so, so sorry," she emphatically assured him.
"Yeah. So you can see why I figured I should just sort of... work around her," He concluded grimly. "I wasn't expecting Ryoga to put up the fight he did - he knocked me into her bed while I was trying to catch him."
"I see..." Nabiki said, and this time, her words were icy. "So he thinks he can get away with taking advantage of my sister's naivety? He's got another thing coming.." she declared darkly.
That afternoon, at the Tendo Dojo...
"I'm home!"
"Welcome home, Akane! How was school today?" Kasumi said, cheerfully greeting her youngest sister.
"Oh, it was great! The girls in my class just loved little P-chan here," Akane replied, gently caressing the ears of the tiny black pig riding in her backpack and grunting happily at the attention.
"Oh, that's good to hear... Nabiki wanted to see you in the living room, by the way," Kasumi told her.
"Huh? Really? Okay, thank you Kasumi," Akane said, taking off her shoes and slipping onto the genkan's platform to enter the house proper. As Kasumi vanished to do her usual Kasumi sort of things, Akane headed for the living room, curious as to what Nabiki wanted...
When she got there, though, she frowned angrily. "Oh. You." She sneered.
"Yes, him," Nabiki dryly quipped back. "And when we're done here, you're going to owe him an apology."
"He snuck into my room in the middle of the night like a pervert!" Akane protested, while giving a look of loathing to the hated intruder.
"And he had a reason for that. One that wasn't perverted at all," Nabiki evenly responded, laying a hand on Ranma's forearm to forestall his rising irritation. "He was trying to take Ryoga from your room."
Akane scoffed loudly. "That crazy story?! He told me the same thing when I woke up while he was creeping on me! There was no Ryoga there!"
"Oh... but there was," Nabiki replied; the smirk on her face and the triumphant tone to her voice sending a chill down Akane's spine. "Did you ever wonder why Ryoga was so hellbent on revenge against Ranma?" she asked, even as her fiance placed a steaming kettle on the table with a metallic clink.
Akane stared, initially not comprehending... but then awareness dawned, and horror sank its icy claws into her heart. "You can't be serious! You're not!"
"Well, it's easy enough to test, isn't it? Give your little pet a hot bath, right here, right now. If we're wrong, then no harm done. And if we're right..."
"I-I'm not pouring boiling water over P-chan! No way!" Akane protested, clutching her pet protectively to her chest.
"Then go and run the bath yourself. Makes no difference to us," Nabiki replied sweetly, shrugging her shoulders.
"I..." Akane swallowed, glancing between her sister, her new pet, and the bane of her life. "Alright, fine! I will! But you'll be sorry when I prove you wrong!" she vowed, and stormed off in the direction of the bathroom.
Nabiki waited until Akane couldn't overhear them, and then turned to Ranma. "There's no chance you're wrong, right?"
"Not at all," Ranma assured her.
They sat there in silence for several minutes. And then came an enraged feminine scream, the sounds of somebody being struck repeatedly with considerable force, and panicky male shouting. Feet thundered down the hall, Kasumi let out an exclamation of "Oh my!" and then the naked form of Ryoga came pelting through the living room, leaping out into the garden and springing over the wall with a wailing cry of dismay.
Nabiki blinked, trying to process what she'd just seen, whilst Ranma smirked. "Told ya," he gloated.
Chapter End & Closing Notes
Now, those who've watched episode 7 will notice some... discrepancies... between it and what I describe going down in this chapter's first half or so (as there was in the Ryoga stuff in the last chapter). Beyond the tweaks to account for the different relationships laid to ground in this fic, there's also the fact that Ryoga's arrival in Nerima is actually one of the series earliest plot-holes! See, we have absolutely no idea how Ryoga figured out that Ranma was at Furinkan, nor how he learned he was at the Tendo Dojo, never mind how he sent Ranma that challenge letter that Ranma gets in the start of episode 8. So, I took a few liberties to try and explain how it was that those things came to be. Hopefully, they don't detract from your enjoyment of this fic!
So, yeah, P-chan will not be a thing here. But let's face it; did you really expect it would? Nabiki is willing to take advantage of her sister, but letting somebody else do that? Not a chance in hell. So, we're going to find a new use for the concept of a cursed Ryoga, but you'll see that in due time.
Our next arc from here is going to be the Kodachi's Introduction arc, followed by Shampoo's Introduction arc. Here's where things are going to get WEIRD, and we do hope you'll be able to enjoy what we do!
I'm surprised nobody's actually brought this up until now, but I had the lecture planned, so why waste it? On the subject of Nabiki's... well, "horniness", keep in mind that in canon, Nabiki is the most "sex positive" of the Tendo sisters - it's part of her characterization as the most "modern womanly" of the trinity. Kasumi isn't entirely prudish - that itsy-bitsy bikini she was wearing in the season 7 beach episode shows that - but she definitely has a more old-fashioned view of sex; remember the scene from the story introducing P-chan, where Nabiki is perfectly okay with the idea that Ranma wanted to have sex with Akane, but Kasumi is protesting that they shouldn't do that before being officially married - stances they return to at the end of that anime episode. And that's not the first time Nabiki displays her flirtatious side; remember the canon's "Nabiki: Ranma's New Fiancee!" arc? Now, you can make the argument that she's playing things up there, and I'd agree with that, but still, Nabiki is far more flirtatious and sexually forward than poor hormone-challenged Akane Tendo. So, given her own fiance, one she likes from the beginning? Yeah ,she's not going to dither on the topic.
So, yes, Ranma will be losing his virginity in this story. Whether I'll do more with that than keep it off-screen, well, I haven't decided yet. But with Nabiki being who she is? Do you really think she's not going to introduce Ranma to the wonders of making out - and from there first through last bases?