Chapter 3: The Nut House Known as Furinkan High School
After the trio left Kasumi laid down hoping that her splitting headache would go away. Soun on the other hand went to the shrine to his dearly departed wife. Sitting down in a meditative manner in front of it, he started to think of what he would say to his youngest child, and from there, his mind wandered to thought about how things got this way. His eyes, which had closed during his thought snapped open. He realized that he really hadn't been a part of his daughters' lives for nearly ten years; this of course... caused him to break down and cry.
On the road to the school however had two females and one female shaped weapon. The weapon was discussing the particulars of the plan with the middle Tendo to reduce the hoard, while Akane was fuming that the pigtailed pervert caused her to not only get in trouble, but to hit her sister as well. She held her tongue however, since it looked as if she was making a deal with Nabiki, and those always turned out worse for the other party. She got so involved in her thoughts she stopped for a bit and got a fair bit behind the other two.
When the duo was almost to school Ranma shifted to male form, and slipped a pair of shoes on to protect his feet. Ranma and Nabiki went to the gate first, where she said, in a clear loud voice, "Attention, Akane HAS been defeated, yet she refused to date the person who did it, in fact it made her hate him more, so if you persist in this challenge the chances of her actually dating you are zero! Besides, Kuno didn't have the authority to make that announcement, since my sister never agreed to it."
"Hold! How dare you slander my name in that manner? I have perfect right to make that announcement, for am I not Tatewaki Kuno, the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, and rising star of the kendo world? Am I not descended from samurai and carry on their traditions?" The Blue Thunder of Furinkan High demanded.
"So?" Ranma said in a dangerously calm voice. He continued with, "That may be your name, you may be a star of the kendo world, but you are no samurai, your ancestors perhaps, you no, besides, nothing you said gives you the right to dictate who she may or may not date. Only her father has that right."
Kuno had steam coming out of his ears as he thought, or pretended to think, how dare that curr, I am from a noble house, so I have a complete right to do what it takes to claim my love, and to make her accept her love for me. "Now curr, I will show you the might of the blue…"
Before Kuno could finish Ranma slipped in close, or at least tried to. His speed had seemed to have jumped up nearly overnight, so he, instead of slipping in close to deliver an attack stumbled due to his reflexes being used to a lower speed, and caused him to bury his head into the kendoist stomach. The impact was impressive, as Ranma main forte was always speed, the amplification he noticed simply compounded the issue, that combined with his rather hard head caused Kuno to double over in pain while Ranma merely had to get up, and brush himself off, all the while wondering what was wrong his abilities.
"Smooth Saotome," Nabiki drawled lazily. Not receiving a response she looked over at Ranma and noted a extremely confused expression on his face. "What's wrong?" she asked curiously.
"I'm too fast, I've jumped up in speed overnight," Ranma answered.
Nabiki raised an eyebrow at the answer, she wasn't a martial artist, but she knew sudden increases in abilities are extremely rare, almost impossible without some gimmick, and since Ranma seemed confused she immediately discounted him doing that. She shook herself out of her thoughts to offer, "Let's get you to the office so you can show them your condition."
Ranma nodded at the comment and a short time later was walking out of the office in her weapon form with the key to the faculty locker room, and leaving behind a shocked vice-principle.
She quickly walked to the classroom and saw another figure standing outside of it. She was dressed in a long sleeved outfit with slacks, but what really caught Ranma's attention was her head, or more precisely what was covering where the ears should be, it looked very familiar, in fact she had seen something similar that morning, in the mirror. How many of these forms are there? Ranma thought in wonder. She walked up to her and said, "Hello, and you are?"
The woman turned around quickly, and found herself facing a student, as she was about to answer she caught site of the earphone like pieces on the girls face, while silently thanking her friend for upgrading her body from teenager to young adult. She answered calmly, "My name is Aigis the new teacher for 3A, and you are?"
"Ranma Saotome, new student," the neoweapon responded.
Aigis blinked at how the weapon in front of her had a last name, she herself had in tribute adopted the last name of the one she loved, who had sacrificed himself for the world years ago.
As the new teacher seemed distracted, Ranma moved to stand outside of the classroom marked 3A.
Aegis realized she had to get into the classroom herself and mumbled to Ranma as she passed, "We need to talk, stay after school today." Aigis, noticing Ranma's nod moved to take her place in front of the classroom. She saw immediately that many males in the room were missing; taking attendance check she saw that almost all the men from the sports teams, as well as Akane Tendo were missing.
The new teacher opened her mouth to ask when a male in the back, Hiroshi by the attendance book in her hands, said while indicating a window, "They're down there like always."
Moving to the indicated window Aigis saw the remains of a massive fight, as a fight between a girl with long blue hair fighting a boy in a keno outfit, who was shouting bad poetry about claiming his fierce tigress at last. The girl was unfortunately doing badly.
Akane for her part was wondering how Kuno suddenly got so good. A thought floated in the back of her mind, he was holding back! But that thought was ruthlessly beaten down by her ego. As her bruises started adding up.
Ranma who had heard Hiroshi's words moved into the classroom to look out the window next to her new teacher. She then realized her speech that morning changed nothing and turn to the teacher to say, "Excuse me, I have to go save her from that wannabe rapist." With that said, and before Aigis could reply, she jumped out the window, and landed in front of a downed Akane with a massive thump. Her first move was to ketch the downward slash of the kendoist. Her next was to kick him in his already abused stomach, which as he bent down to clutch his stomach put his jaw in the perfect position for a knee to knock him flat on his back dazed.
Aigis had a few thoughts as she watched the beat down, the primary was, Where was she during the incident in Gekkougan? The second was, What was that about?
Ranma for her part noticed that this form had also increased in its abilities, but she was moving as if she had earned the power instead of just having an instantaneous jump in abilities.
Kuno on the other hand was in a world of pain, the foul curr who head butted him in the stomach earlier had left a large bruise, and the kick he just received felt like a fast moving steel girder, and amplified the pain. The knee to the jaw also hurt like hell, and as he struggled up he saw what to him was a vision of loveliness, a flame haired beauty... who was winding up for another kick? Said kick landed in a sensitive piece of male anatomy sending him to near unconsciousness due to pain.
Ranma saw that Kuno was still conscious, even if just barely so she decided to inform both him and the boys who were still awake, "Next time I see this mob attacking anyone, I use these," and caused both half foot long arm blades to extend, before continuing, "to castrate the offenders." With her piece said Ranma retracted her blades, and leaped up to the classroom she had vacated earlier. She was met with her homeroom teacher whom had the fact that she has questions plainly written on her pretty face.
"Ranma, I understand why you did that, but detention for fighting," the teaching weapon said briskly, and seeing Ranma nod turned to see Akane entering the room. "Akane, buckets hall, and detention for fighting. Now Ranma move to the front of the room and introduce yourself."
Ranma moved next to the teacher's desk and said, "My name is Ranma Saotome, yes I was serious earlier, and no I have no interest in dating, as I'm already engaged."
"Take an empty seat, that one," Aigis said pointing to the desk beside which Akane normally sat.
The conscious members of the mob straggled in as Aigis started her math lesson, and directed them to the hall, they ran out of buckets, so about half were just standing out there. This was a surprise to the boys, as until now they had never been punished for their involvement in the morning fights. Now they had to stand outside and detention after school. The standers were let back inside for second period. The classes were typical high school courses, and Ranma due to his nature was forced to remain awake during all of them.
When lunch came around Ranma, even though she really wasn't hungry, and a quick check of her status in her HUD (Heads Up Display) showed her power to be nearly maxed, she ate her rather small bento so as to not arouse suspicion. During the meal she considered her response earlier as it wasn't like her. She had noticed that she tends to think more… logically, directly, and can see the most efficient path needed for a desired result in this form, and is more brutal in her fights. Not that she couldn't fight it, but in the heat of battle it is difficult.
As she pondered her situation a couple of boys came up to her they were two boys she saw in class that weren't part of the morning mob, but before they could speak a girl came up to the red haired weapon, and spoke. "Hey, instead of being here alone why don't you come sit by us?" she said as she pointed at a tree across the grounds that had Akane and another girl. She then grabbed Ranma's hand and tried to drag the two or three hundred plus pound weapon to her friends.
The two boys were disappointed that the new girl was going to be dragged away before they had a chance to talk to her, and possibly get corrupted by Akane's anti male attitude, but were pleasantly surprised when Ranma removed her hand from the other girls grip and replied in a neutral tone of voice, "No thank you, I have enough problems with Akane."
The girl was taken aback and was about to reply, when one of the boys spoke up, "Hi, My name is Hiroshi, and this is Daisuke. We were wondering if we could sit with you."
Ranma nodded her head and said, "Sure, just don't try anything, and the answer is no if you're asking for a date," she paused as she remembered what she witnessed that morning, and added pointedly, "also no perverted questions."
The two sit down near where Ranma had put aside the small lunch box, and started to ask questions. Many of the questions were fairly common, ranging from her age, how she learned to fight like she does, and about her fiancée, which quickly prompted an explanation about Jusenkyo and the odd effects it had on Ranma, with a promise by Ranma to show them tomorrow the proof. The bell signifying the end of lunch rang after Ranma had made the promise signifying the start of afternoon classes.
-Meanwhile at the Tendo Dojo-
Kasumi, recovered from her morning Akane induced headache was fretting. She had realized that Ranma was a nice piece of relitivly unclaimed technology, and it could be trouble if one of her guild mates found her in robot form while she was unable to turn back. Most of the time it wasn't an issue because the guild was a fairly honest place, but there were a few people who wouldn't think twice about taking something not claimed by someone in the guild, sentient or not, and take it apart to see what makes it tick if it caught their interest. The recovered robot had such markings, but from what she had seen Ranma did not. The problem lied in that she didn't know how to handle the problem. She needed advice from someone whom she could trust someone who knew all the ru…
Then it hit her. There was one person whom came to mind immediately who fulfilled all the requirements, and that she could easily contact, and the second that came to mind was scary, but had enough guild experience, and rank, to aid her. Moving to the phone she dialed the number of her first thought. As the phone rang in she dug a plastic card out of her apron pocket. The card had a photo of her in the coveralls she used to work on Tara with a large smile and holding a wrench, and beside the photo read:
Name: Kasumi Tendo
Guild name: Dame Nebel
High Journeyman Rank
The Guild of Exotic Engineers
Member number: 465239
Introduced and sponsored by: Fran Madaraki
The other end of the phone picked up and she said in English, "Hello this is Dame Nebel member number 465239, and I need to speak with the guild master, yes it's fairly urgent, yes I'll hold." After a few minutes of waiting, and hoping nobody came she heard the sleepy voice of the guild master on the phone, she, knowing the man needed his sleep, concisely reported her dilemma with Ranma, "I have a problem, yes I could call my sponsor, but she might make it worse, yes it's that type of problem. I recently got engaged due to a family engagement and…" she continued with the explanation of both the normal Jusenkyo curses, and Ranma's specific variant, and her eye witness report on the truth of both. She then waited on the line as the guild master, who was now wide awake thought about the situation. He came back with an answer. "Are you sure that's the best way? Oh dear, he won't like that, yes I understand I'll do it ASAP. WHAT YOU'RE COMING HERE! Sir it's much to… yes sir." With that last comment she hung up the phone, put away her card, put her public face back on after showing a brief trace of resentment that the deception is necessary, and got back to her chores.
-On the other side of the world in America-
A seventy year old man, wearing a set of pajama's with the colors electric blue, sunflower yellow, and florescent pink in a plaid pattern, was sitting in his bed thinking on what one of his favorite guild members had told him. Both of his eyes, his unnaturally blue cybernetic right, and his natural blue left were hooded in thought. He had never heard of these springs before, and even though she had woke him up in the middle of the night he had to agree that calling Fran would be a bad idea. On the other hand, her new fiancé might not like the solution, not that he was really happy with it either, but he vowed that as soon as he could he would visit the both of them and explain. He also had to make sure that her boyfriend/girlfriend wouldn't interfere in her choice of vocation, unlike that bastard Tofu.
Slipping out of his bed he crossed the sparsely furnished room to his rather beat up oak desk, and wrote himself a note to clear up a week soon, and book tickets to Japan, and from there to China a few days later. Note finished the one known to the guild as Dr. Cyber to the guild went back to his large bed in the main American guild hall, turned off the lights, and was soon sleeping, and dreaming of people who turned into other things by water temperature.
-Back at Furinkan High School-
Ranma shook her head to clear the static. She then glared at the girl with the long blue hair that had just hit her with a softball, she had hit during her turn at bat. Ranma then picked up the ball, and resisting her current forms impulses to counter attack, threw the ball back to the pitcher easily, from nearly five hundred feet. Everybody looked in surprise at her, and many girl sports teams wanted her on their team, assuming of course the rest of her has the ability of her throwing arm.
One of the two boys, who were sitting next to her, thought to ask, "Are you okay? That looked like it hurt."
"I'm fine, just needed a second to get rid of the static," Ranma replied off handedly, without quite realizing exactly what she said.
The boys would've said something but they remembered Ranma's explanation so held there peace, besides the fact that Ranma wasn't even bruised after getting hit by a softball that would've cracked most people's skulls supported at least part of the story. Hiroshi thought to ask, "Who is your fiancée anyway?"
"I will tell you if you promise to keep it to yourself," upon seeing the two nod, Ranma continued, "remember that I'm really a guy, and my fiancée is Kasumi."
The two boys were pole axed; they thought for sure that their new friend would've chosen the most popular girl at school. On second thought, upon further reflection, they could see the appeal of the oldest Tendo. While the two boys were both Akane fans, although less rabid than the morning hoard, they had heard that the eldest Tendo was a great cook, and one of the sweetest people they knew.
The end of gym, the final period of the day came quickly, and most of the male, and sometimes male, students filed into the class room, where Aigis and another teacher waited, the second teacher held detention for all but one student, who was led to a different room for a privet combination of detention and interrogation. As soon as the door closed Aigis listened carefully for anybody close enough to eavesdrop, as well as any electronic bugs, finding none she turned on the crimsoned haired weapon in front of her and asked, "Okay, why didn't you return if you were active?"
Ranma sighed, and responded with a condensed version of the events that lead to her current condition and with some hesitation the broken android that she and her fiancée were attempting to repair. At the end of the explanation Ranma said, "if you don't believe me you can come to the house I'm living at and, within the hour I should be able to change, and we can show you the damaged robot.
Aigis adopted a skeptical look on her face as the explanation took place, but the offer to visit her student's home, and in the unlikely event that what her student is saying is true, perhaps find one of her missing sisters was immediately accepted.
Soon enough detention was over and a pair of weapons walked toward the Tendo Dojo. Ranma motioned for Aigis to wait while he entered the house, a few minute later she walked back out and invited the teacher inside.
Kasumi was waiting inside, and immediately noticed her fiancé was telling the truth, while his/her teacher was definitely more advanced than the one she had under her bed, or Ranma she was, also recognizable as part of the same series. She remembered her manners quickly and said, "I understand Ranma invited you to see the… souvenir, she brought home, please come this way." She then lead the two others to her room, and since they would have a few hours until she had to cook dinner, told them to wait outside as she changed. A minute later she opened the door, causing Ranma to have to shake off another blue screen of death at her appearance, which while still modest was far cuter than her normal housedress.
The two weapons entered the room, and Ranma immediately turned toward Aigis and said, "Here's the first proof," and with a mild electrical show changed into her male human form.
Aigis's eyes widened at the demonstration, and every effort to find a rational explanation (rational as in scientific) caused a blue screen of death to appear, and she had no choice but to accept the explanation that Ranma had given.
During the brain freeze that Aigis was experiencing Ranma and Kasumi pulled out both the android and the tools so when Aigis looked over to ask some questions she saw it. Her eyes widened as she said, "Tara, it's Tara. She was sent to China to explore the range at which the dark hour appeared when she dropped off our sensors. Well now I know what happened to her, and I'll see whether I can get some of my previous body's spare parts delivered to help with repairs." With that said Aigis took her leave.
The two tinkered around some without making real progress until it was time for Kasumi to make supper. After supper, Ranma and Kasumi talked about the plans for rebuilding Tara. Soon enough it was time for bed, and a panda was sleeping while a android was running diagnostics. During this time the door opened and a figure walked in holding some sealed cans, and some four inch long thin objects, after settling down near Ranma the figure removed the androids shirt and went to work. Half an hour later she resealed the cans, cleaned off the thin objects, stretched its back, and whispered, "I'm sorry Ranma," before leaving the room.
End chapter
AN: Dame Nebel translated roughly from German to Lady Mist.
AN2: I know I breezed through a lot of talking, specifically the explanations, but if i didn't I would be repeating the same explwanations already given three or four times.
:OMAKE! By Princess Asuna.:
Sailor Pluto stood in the void where the time gates should have been standing. Her right eye twitched violently as she stared at the space where the gates of time SHOULD have been. Clutched in Sailor Pluto's hand was a short note which read, "Needed your gates for parts for a new time machine signed K."
Meanwhile at a certain workshop a certain Tendo sister sneezed as she was putting the finishing touches on her brand new time machine. She had gotten the idea from the gaijin movie, Back to the Future and the car was ready to roll… when she remembered that she didn't have a license.
