FATE
A Ranma1/2 fanfic by PansutoTarou5925
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Disclaimer to follow at end of chapter
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It was a much more irritated and rumpled Chiyeko who returned back to the old Tendo home with Atasuke Ono that night. "That school is insane. What sort of school has a chi vampire as a principal? Yeesh," she complained. "My last school wasn't nearly so bad. I only had to deal with the psycho teaching shop as some sort of community service."
"Hinako-san's really not that bad. I've never seen her get sick after draining someone before, though." Something she just said penetrated Atasuke's brain. "You took shop class?" he asked, confused. It matched neither the martial arts obsession or the girl's desperate wish to act like a normal girl once in a while.
She shrugged. "The school was a feeder to some technical college. Shop was required. I just wish I didn't have Mr. Sparkplugs himself teaching it. Kami-sama, that was pointless. He kept going on and on about how fuel cells were an affront to all that was good and holy." She threw open the gates of the Tendo home, letting the huge gates crash into the wall with a loud bang. "Obaba! You get your butt out here right now so we can get my uniform!" she yelled.
"My," a thin middle aged man said, walking through the gates. "You're about as polite to Ranma as," he paused, "she was to Genma." He smiled. "You must be Chiyeko. I'm Tofu Ono."
Chiyeko slowly reddened. "I'm, I'm very sorry, Ono-san, I wasn't expecting to meet you here. My mother usually practices all day outside, I was just-"
Tofu waved her to a stop. "It's not necessary. I know what you were thinking." He adjusted his glasses. "Ranma said she wanted to meet some old friends of hers. She'll probably be back tonight."
Nodding to both his father and Chiyeko, Atasuke took the opportunity to run into the bathroom.
"Aw, man, she just wants to weasel out of shopping for 'girly clothes' for me," Chiyeko complained. "I swear she'd have been happier with a boy! No! She'd have been happier if SHE was a boy! Obaba no baka!" With that, Chiyeko stomped off to her room.
Tofu smiled privately. That was probably correct. "She'll probably go shopping with you tomorrow." After Kasumi and I tell her how much you want her to, he amended. The one thing you could count on about Ranma was that the redhead had always loved her daughter. If the Amazons hadn't locked Ranma's curse... but they had, and now a lot of demons were involved in Ranma's relationship with both her daughter and her daughter's mother. There was the curse, and the quiet little private war between the Amazons and the Anything-Goes school that had been going on afterwards.
At least with Happousai and Cologne both dead, it wasn't nearly as dangerous as it had been that first exciting year, he reflected. He still remembered the screaming Ranma coming through his door, blood pouring from her destroyed left eye...
Tofu shuddered. "Kasumi, do you sometimes get the feeling that things should have gone better than they did?" he asked his wife as he reentered the house.
She nodded. "Should have, yes, but they didn't." She stopped cutting vegetables and looked pointedly at the guest room. "Sometimes I think that Ranma exists simply to destroy everything she touches."
"Her pride always got her in trouble," Tofu agreed. He pulled an apple out of the fridge and washed it off. "Then again, the Amazons's pride probably caused even more problems. The two of them seem pretty cursed by the gods on account of it," Tofu said, taking a bite.
"You really shouldn't be eating that, so close to dinner," Kasumi admonished him.
"Well, if I didn't eat something, I'd be in here, too hungry to think and getting in your way." He winked. "Didn't you know an apple a day keeps the doctor away?"
Kasumi groaned. "That was horrible, dear."
Tofu chuckled and tossed the half-eaten apple in the trash.
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Atasuke Ono had retrieved his tape from the furo from where he had stashed it, and was carefully setting up the tiny camcorder to play back on the TV on his desk. The door was locked and the blinds down - always a sensible precaution when you were living with a bunch of powerful martial artist women. His small flatscreen - so crisp! so detailed! - blinked on, and he muted the sound.
He saw Ranma get in the tub first. While he appreciated the fiery beauty of Ranma, who looked younger than her age and showed absolutely no signs of having had children, she was a little old for his tastes. Instead, he fast forwarded to the part that he was interested in.
He saw Chiyeko's exotically tanned body come in, apparently yelling at Ranma, who simply dismissively waved at her and continued to soak in the furo. Chiyeko then scrubbed off, still facing away from the camera. "Turn around, damn you," Atasuke whispered in irritation. He wanted a front view of his fiancé!
Maddeningly, as if she knew there was a camera, Chiyeko refused to cooperate. The few times she turned around a bit while scrubbing down, suds covered anything interesting. Then, when she stood up and got in the furo, her towel was strategically positioned the whole time! And to top it all off, she was mad enough at Ranma that she sat in the corner with her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them. "No!" he yelled. "All that work for NOTHING!"
"Atasuke?" his mother's voice drifted up from below. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine mom!" he yelled back, sweating. Then he turned back to the screen.
Chiyeko had leaned her head back, letting her blond locks spill backwards. "That's what I want," Atasuke said , clapping his hands. Then he noticed her forehead. "What's with that weird marking?" he asked. It was dead center of a pale strip running around Chiyeko's head. Her headband, he realized. She must never take the thing off. He considered this.
"She has small red dots by her eyes. I thought it was some sort of weird martial arts tattoo, but..." He frowned. "She hides the one on her forehead. Maybe they would tell her to cover it up at school... but then she wouldn't wear that headband so much it leaves a tan line." He shrugged, not understanding it. "I'll just ask her about it," he said, smiling. He pushed his glasses further up on his nose, unconsciously matching his father's gesture.
Then he realized something. "Damn it! How would I know about it?"
That didn't deter him, however. Atasuke Ono would get to the bottom of this... especially as it would mean sneaking more pictures of Chiyeko in the tub.
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Chiyeko was busy changing in her room at that moment. Her long kung-fu tunics, while bright, silky, and pleasing to the eye on her, were completely unsuitable for the sort of sneaking around she felt like doing right now. She unwrapped the red headband she had been wearing and exchanged it for a black one, and dressed herself in a dark, drab-looking flat black gi. She smiled. For spying on her mother and her friends, this would be ideal. Now, if she could get Kasumi to tell her where they were...
She skipped down the stairs, nearly knocking over Atasuke doing so as the boy came out of his room. "Sorry, Chiyeko-chan," he said politely, bowing slightly. "I should have watched where I was going." He smiled at her.
"No problem," she said, shrugging. She looked in the kitchen, found Kasumi. "Hey Auntie Kasumi!" she said energetically.
"Oh, hi Chiyeko," Kasumi said, turning slightly to look at the blonde martial artist. "Planning on training?"
"Yeah," Chiyeko said, nodding. It wasn't even a lie - everything was training, especially if Ranma was your teacher. She opened the fridge and pulled out a diet soda. "Say, where is my mother right now?" she asked casually as she opened the can.
"Oh, Ranma's out visiting some old friends of... hers," Kasumi said, nearly blowing Ranma's secret again.
"Oh, really?" Chiyeko said, glad that the can was partially hiding her face and even more glad that Kasumi was paying far more attention to her soup. She had definitely inherited her mother's lack of a poker face. "The obaba has friends here?"
"Oh yes, Ukyo and Ryoga," Kasumi said. "They're old friends of Ranma's from long ago."
"I bet they're martial artists," Chiyeko said, attempting to draw more information out of Kasumi while looking casual. If they were teaching at any dojos, she could probably look them up in the phone book.
Kasumi nodded. "Ukyo practices - or practiced - a school of martial arts centered on cooking Okonomiyaki," she said.
Chiyeko rolled her eyes. This Ukyo sounded like a crazy martial artist, too. Just the sort of person she'd have figured her mother to have as a friend.
"-and Ryoga teaches kempo outside of town at his wife's farm," Kasumi continued.
Chiyeko tossed the can of soda in the trash as she finished it. "Kempo, huh? Well, I better get to the park or I'll never hear the end of it when mom comes back," she said hurriedly as she left the room.
"She's up to something," Kasumi said thoughtfully as she continued to stir her soup. She smiled brightly. "Well, she can't find Ranma. She doesn't even know her way around Nerima, anyways."
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"Atasuke-kun!" Chiyeko said, grabbing the boy by the arm as he was practicing. "Just the boy I want to see! Can I have a favor?"
Atasuke smiled at her. "Well," he said, scratching the back of his head and giving a disarming smile, "what kind of favor is it?"
Chiyeko looked away and feigned nervousness. "Well, it's like this... I want to go somewhere, but, you know, I don't know my way around town, so..." She turned around slightly and smiled shyly.
Atasuke Ono laughed. "Sure, I can show you around. Where do you want to go?"
Chiyeko smirked. Putty in her hands! "Well, I was wondering if you knew any good okonomiyaki places?"
"Hmm," he said, thinking. Atasuke took his glasses off and wiped them. "Well," he said after considering the question, "I don't really like okonomiyaki. The only place I can think of is Ucchan's, and that's only because my aunt's friends with the owner." He had visited the place once or twice; apparently the guy owning it was a friend of Akane's and so was the weird ninja waitress who worked there.
"Perfect!" If the owner was friends with Akane, then odds were this 'Ukyo' person was the owner. The name just confirmed that. "We'll go there!"
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When she arrived at the restaurant, she pulled Atasuke into a nearby alleyway. "What?" he asked, curious.
"My mother is in that restaurant," Chiyeko said. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but I actually just wanted to spy on her."
"Fine with me," Atasuke said. He thought of something. "We can't just sneak in and pretend to be another happy couple - the restaurant is too small, and even so, I think your mother's a bit more observant than that, and Ukyo has a ninja working as a waitress."
"A ninja waitress?" Chiyeko said, baffled. "Weird." She looked around the corner for second. "I've got it!" Chiyeko said.
"You do?" her companion replied. "What are you planning?"
"It's really small, right? Just a countertop inside the doorway, basically, and the door's open, right?"
"It is," he confirmed.
"I'll just sit outside the door then. We can listen from there, and sneak off when my mother finishes talking. There's another alley just beyond the restaurant - we can hide in there when she leaves."
Atasuke seemed dubious about it. "That seems kinda..." Stupid, he thought, but was too tactful to say. "...simple," he finished lamely.
"Whatever," she said. She pulled him out of the alley and casually strolled past the restaurant, with the more normal-looking Atasuke between her and the restaurant, then snuck back under the window and crouched down by the door. Sure enough, her loud, rude mother was keeping the volume of the conversation to the point where she could eavesdrop from the doorway. She snuck a look at this Ukyo guy, to see what kind of friends her mother had.
"Hmm," she said. She really couldn't judge a guy's looks in his thirties, but this Ukyo guy kept his body in decent shape. A little effeminate and bishonen, but she had gathered a long time ago that the 'manly man' type didn't interest her mother at all. The few times she had attempted to arrange a date... the results were not pretty.
She shivered, remembering that horrible, endless lecture that had followed that and the bad mood her mother was in for a week after that incident. It was almost as bad as the time she took a kitten she found to camp.
"Mom seems to like him," Chiyeko whispered to Atasuke.
"Aunt Akane mentioned Ukyo and your mom had once been an item," Atasuke said. Actually, Akane hadn't actually said that, but it had been strongly implied.
"Hmm," Chiyeko said, thoughtfully. If her mother liked this guy, he'd never know it - she was far too unfeminine. On the other hand, if she were to help the two along...
She smiled mischievously. "I think I've got a project," she said, laughing softly. Completely forgetting her original intention to eavesdrop, she pulled Atasuke along as she snuck away from the restaurant, planning to spring a surprise on her mother.
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Ranma and Ukyo, both blissfully unaware of the thought processes of a certain platinum-haired girl, were discussing deep weighty matters inside the Ucchan's.
"Ranma, you really need to get over this fixation with the Amazons. It's been, what, 17 years? Find some other way to break the lock. Leave it alone," Ukyo urged.
Ranma shook her head. "I can't, Ucchan. They took my manhood, my eye, they robbed my daughter of a father - it's about more than just my curse, you know." She pointed to the patch over her eye. "It's about more than this, too. Those barbarian bitches have taken seventeen years of my LIFE away!" Ranma angrily swatted a bottle of soy sauce away, sending it rolling down the countertop until Konatsu caught it.
Ukyo stared hard at her. "So let me get this straight, you're going to go kill a bunch of Amazons? That really worked for you last time, didn't it?" Ranma glared hard at her with her good eye. "Killing them does no good; they'll never give you a cure. All you're going to do is put your daughter at risk."
"Just killing them wasn't my plan," Ranma said, looking down at her uneaten okonomiyaki. "I tried that last time and all it did was get Happousai killed and my eye torn out. Even if Cologne died and a few other elders, it didn't accomplish anything beyond that." She looked up, seriousness written all over her face. "No, I've got in mind something else."
"Just what do you have in mind?" Ukyo said, laughing. "They won't budge for anything."
Ranma remained silent and continued to stare at the cold food in front of her.
"C'mon Ranma, speak up. Or at least eat and don't let my cooking go to waste."
She sighed. "Fine then. I was planning on offering a tournament. Myself and a few friends against the Amazons. If I win, a cure. If not...."
Ukyo looked at her. "If not, what?"
Ranma sighed. "Then I don't kill them. They have plenty of enemies. Me, you, Konatsu, Ryoga, Akane, Chiyeko... we're all good martial artists. Chiyeko's better than I was at that age," Ranma said, "and certain neighbors of the Amazons bear them ill will."
"Ranma, the Amazons have to be alive to tell you how to cure your problem," Ukyo said, slitting her eyes at Ranma.
"So screw the Amazons. I'm betting Herb or Saffron can cure what they did to me," Ranma huffed.
"Why didn't you ask them, then?" Ukyo asked casually.
"Because this is about more than the curse, Ukyo. It's about their damn laws destroying my life. They'll face up to that, or I'll crush them," Ranma said, reaching over and pulling out an egg from behind the counter, "like this!" The smashed egg splattered on the cooking grill, where it quickly burned up. The chef scraped it off with a small spatula.
"OK, Ranma, that's nice to know," she said. "Come back when you've got something in mind a little less bloodthirsty." She leaned back against the wall, watching Ranma, who ate her cold okonomiyaki quickly.
Ranma sighed. "Ukyo, if you don't want to go to war with the Amazons, fine. But can I at least have your help in the tournament?"
"Sure thing, sugar," Ukyo said, earning a jealous flinch from Konatsu. "Friends have to help friends, right?"
"Right," Ranma said, smiling. Privately, she had figured on this. Ryoga would be one of the few people she could count on all the way. Between him, Chiyeko, and herself, that's all the edge the Musk or Phoenix tribe would need in a war anyways. "How about you, Konatsu?"
"Of course I'm in, Ranma," he said. "How can I protect Ukyo otherwise?" the effeminate ninja answered.
"Great," Ranma said, smiling. "I'll tell you more after I talk to Ryoga." With that, Ranma put down her yen on the counter and left.
It wasn't until she was safely out of earshot that she let herself grumble. "Ukyo, you of all people should understand my need to regain my masculinity," she groused, then shook her head. Then again, Ukyo probably thought that she was going overboard about the Amazons or something. "She doesn't have any kids, though. She doesn't know how hurt I am every time Chiyeko smiles at me and says 'Okaasan'." Something struck her then. "Oh crap! Chiyeko! Kasumi made me promise to take her shopping for a uniform tonight!"
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Ranma returned to the ancestral Tendo home for dinner to find a glaring Chiyeko and bemused Kasumi and Tofu. "Where's Atasuke?" she said, noticing that the boy was missing.
"He's over at a friend's," Kasumi said. "We left your dinner in the refrigerator, by the way." Looking at her seriously, she continued: "Don't you have something to say to your daughter?"
"Yes, I do." Ranma steeled herself, then used a technique she had only used once before- "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please forgive me!"
Chiyeko recoiled in discomfort from seeing her mother groveling at her feet. "Knock it off, mom! That's embarrassing!" She looked around and saw that Tofu and Kasumi were laughing.
"Ah, your father's old 'Crouch of the Wild Tiger'," Tofu said, laughing. "I haven't seen that in years."
"You mean something that lame is considered a technique?" Chiyeko said, unimpressed. "Mom, I'm losing my respect for me."
"What respect?" Ranma said dryly. Chiyeko giggled. "We'll get your uniform tomorrow after school."
"So, how did your meeting with Ukyo go?" Tofu asked.
"Oh, pretty good,"Ranma said. "We caught up on old times, talked about my plans..."
Chiyeko nodded. Very interesting. Have to figure out a way to get the two together. Maybe if her mom got laid she'd be less of a... nevermind. She didn't want to think of her mother doing THAT.
"Oh! Chiyeko, does the food not taste right?" Kasumi asked, noticing the greenish tinge the girl had taken on for a second.
"Oh, nothing of the sort," Chiyeko said, laughing nervously. "Nothing at all!"
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The next morning Ranma found herself outside of Tokyo, looking the biggest pig she had ever seen in the face. "You must be one of Akari's sumo pigs," Ranma said conversationally. "I think I knew your granddaddy Katshuniki. Say, can you go get Ryoga for me?"
The large pig - quite used to the way that Ryoga tended to get lost - grunted affirmatively and ran off, leaving Ranma to sit on top of the fence and wait. She looked over the farm. It hadn't changed much since the last time she visited. Ryoga's kids were both far younger than Chiyeko; they were both loveable scamps who loved "Auntie" Ranma and their "big sister" Chiyeko.
Soon enough, the pig was leading an older, wiser, and somewhat grayer Ryoga to her. Apparently the Hibikis started going gray early, Ranma noticed. Normally, she'd be more than happy to start harassing her old friend and rival, but right now she had bigger fish to fry. "Hey Ryoga! How's it going?"
"Well enough," Ryoga said, flexing his muscles. "Keeping in shape, getting better every year. I haven't had the opportunity to go wandering all over the world like some people I know, but I haven't been sitting on my ass watching the grass grow the past two years, either."
"I'll say," Ranma said, casting a critical eye over Ryoga's aura. Definitely stronger and more centered than before. "How are the kids?"
"Oh, they're doing just fine in school," Ryoga said. "Hideo and Hikaru are in second grade now. They walk to school with one of the neighbor's children - don't want them getting lost and wandering off the way I did." He sighed. "At least they seem to have moved out of their 'P-chan' phase."
Ranma laughed. "I remember that. Last time I came, I don't think you stayed human for more than two minutes at a time.'
Ryoga nodded. "Yeah. How's Chiyeko?"
"She's better than I was at that age," Ranma said proudly. "More skilled, a lot more ki. She's got funny ki, very heavy, but she's got lots of it." Ranma paused. "We're staying with Kasumi for the moment."
Deciding that Ryoga hadn't taken offense that she hadn't asked to stay at the Hibiki house, Ranma continued. "Anyways, I needed to ask if I could have your help with a certain problem of mine?"
He nodded. "Let me guess. You're going after the Amazons again."
"Yeah," Ranma said. "If you don't want to help because of your sons... I'll understand."
"No," Ryoga said, shaking his head. "I'm in. I know how much it would mean for you to be able to be a man again. I've seen how you flinch every time Chiyeko calls you mother... say, how is Chiyeko's mother doing?"
"Busy," Ranma said, waving her hand. "She's always away. Poor Chiyeko; she thinks her real mother is her aunt." Ranma sighed. "I told Hild I wanted to marry her once this is all over - I told didn't want her to live in sin." Ranma frowned. "She laughed at me."
Ryoga growled. "She what?"
"She said not to worry, she just thought it was funny the way I phrased it," Ranma said. "I don't see what's so funny about it myself."
Ryoga shrugged. "She was always weird." Privately, Ryoga had always thought that she was dangerous, and Hild was about the last sort of person he saw Ranma getting together with. Trying to talk Ranma out of marrying her was impossible, though. The guy was just too honorable for his own good. "Come to think of it, you never did explain the whole story behind how you met her."
Ranma sweated. "It's pretty stupid and dumb."
"I've got some sake in the house," Ryoga said, jerking a thumb towards the door. "You can get drunk and forget you told me."
"Won't take much, either," Ranma said, laughing. "With a threat like that, how can I refuse?"
"Just tell me the Genma version if you want - leaving out all the important details," Ryoga said, taking a seat on the fence.
"Eh, I guess," Ranma said. "It was in China, I kept turning into a girl, and I had this sexy chick hitting on me." Ranma shrugged. "If it weren't for the curse-"
"-you would have turned her down," Ryoga said, sighing. "Yeah, I know that feeling exactly."
"You should," Ranma opined, "seeing as that's how you got your crush on Akane, P-chan."
"You could stop bringing up that little indiscretion, Ranma," Ryoga said coldly.
"But it's so fun to tease you about it!" Ranma said, giggling. Then she caught herself. "Sorry, sorry..."
"It wouldn't be right if I didn't feel like beating the crap out of you," Ryoga said, shaking his head. "Come to think of that, let's see how much you've improved."
"Is that a challenge, P-chan?" Ranma said, jumping off the fence.
"Yeah, so bring it on, Patch!" Ryoga said, getting off as well.
It was not until much later that a bruised and somewhat tired Ranma staggered home and collapsed in the Tendo home. "Mom!" Chiyeko said, coming home and throwing her books on Ranma's chest.
"Oof!" Ranma said, as Chiyeko upended the couch.
"Get off your butt!" Chiyeko said cheerfully. "You need to bring me to the ma-all!"
"I'm going, I'm going," Ranma said, getting up and dusting yourself off. "I didn't forget."
"Sure fooled me," Chiyeko sniffed, as she pulled her mother out the door.
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Meanwhile, far from Tokyo...
Another young girl, coincidentally the same age as Chiyeko, was finishing her inspection of her bike before putting on her helmet. "Silly Welsper," she said, picking the old cat off her seat. "I can't bring you along. Stay with Mom!" She put her bags in the sidecar and went back inside.
"Mom! Dad! I'm leaving now!"
Belldandy and Keiichi Morisato quickly came to the door and hugged their daughter goodbye. "Don't forget to call in whenever possible, Sifu," Belldandy said. "And don't forget to tell your aunts Skuld and Urd where you'll be staying."
"I won't," Sifu Morisato said.
"Good luck, squirt," Keiichi said, mussing up his daughter's hair.
"Daa-ad!" she cried, embarrassed. "I'm seventeen! You can stop calling me 'squirt' now."
"Ok," Keiichi said. "Just be careful. Demons are dangerous."
"Father wouldn't have given her an assignment like this if it weren't something she could handle, even as a Surface Trainee," Belldandy said. "I'm sure Sifu will be fine."
"Yeah, Dad, that girl will never know what hit her," Sifu said. "I'll put an end to whatever trouble she's causing on Midgard!" With that, she got on the bike and fired up the engine. Giving them both a big thumbs up, she roared off down the road.
Keiichi shivered and looked at Belldandy. "Are you sure she'll be all right?"
Belldandy nodded. "I'm certain of it. Besides, Skuld will be watching her, and the demonness she's following is the same age as Sifu. She'll be fine."
Keiichi nodded and walked back to his garage slowly. Still, it took every effort not to get on his own bike and follow her, just to make sure.
DISCLAIMER: Ranma ½ is the property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shonen Sunday, Viz, and other parties; I make no claims of ownership of any of the intellectual or other properties pertaining to it. Oh! My Goddess belongs to Kosuke Fujishima, Studio Proteus, Dark Horse, and other parties, and I make no claims of ownership of any of the intellectual or other properties pertaining to it, either.
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Author's Note: I extol the wonders of carrots produced under the communist system...