FanFiction.Net - unleash your imagination 
mobile edition|
Author of 6 Stories |
That's it, I give up. I smashed poor Kasumi's ideals about people into tiny shards of glass and not one of you blasted me for it. I refuse to try to get flamed anymore. Instead, I bring you this bit of story that is in a more positive direction. I do acknowledge that this story is grim, but being forced to endure the Cat Fist and survive is a grim business. I apologize that I couldn't make it any lighter than I could just yet, but there is always hope. After all, Kasumi still cares enough to try, even with Idiots like Genma running loose. It is small consolation, but there are a lot of people that hate Genma, maybe they'll get lucky and find him in that alleyway after all.
Disclaimer: Rumiko Takahashi would disembowel me for doing this to her Ranma 1/2. Suing is too good for me.
Soun nodded emphatically. "Nodoka and I both agree that being around others his own age will do him a world of good."
Nabiki couldn't deny that, but then again, she wasn't a psyche professor, either.
"What about his curse?" Kasumi asked, her hand twitched to hold onto Ranma's but she stilled it.
Soun crossed his arms and hesitated, wondering just how they were going to explain that to the school and the staff in general.
"I wouldn't worry about it too much, Kasumi." Akane said, taking her eyes off the pervert for the moment. "With all the fights and strange stuff that occurs at Furinkan, one more weirdo will hardly matter."
That got her a dirty look from Nabiki and a disappointed one from Kasumi, but she pretended she didn't see them as she leveled another hard stare at the pervert.
"Still, It would probably be best if someone were to take him to the office and explain to the staff his particular…problem." Soun offered, looking at Nabiki who understood the unspoken request.
"What about placement?" Kasumi asked, worried that Ranma's emotional problems weren't the only problems he had. "Do you think his father allowed him to go to school?"
"Guess we'll find out, won't we, Ranma?" Nabiki said as she stood up from the table, taking his hand in hers. "We'd better get going, or we're going to be late." Giving her white blouse and light blue dress a cursory glance, she waited till Ranma got to his feet before walking him to the front door.
She stepped out the door first, only to have Ranma stop, wrenching her shoulder involuntarily. Looking at the boy in confusion, she pulled on his arm again, only to have him once more refuse to walk outside. Letting up, she tried the polite approach. "Ranma, I may not be with you all day today. You're gonna have to learn to walk on your own around school if that's the case."
A shiver ran through Ranma, yet he refused to move.
"You're not speaking his language, Nabiki." Akane said from behind Ranma. "Here's how it works. Ranma, go to school or by Kami, I'm going to mallet you."
Ranma leapt out the doorway and nearly ran Nabiki down as he pulled her through the gates, looking fearfully up and down the street as he looked for the school. Akane walked by them, turning up the street with a smirk on her face.
"See, Nabiki? You just have to know how to talk to him." She calmly spoke as she walked away in her own light blue dress and white blouse.
Growling under her breath, Nabiki got her feet underneath her as she stood up and removed her hand from Ranma's, working her shoulder gently. Before Ranma could bolt off in a direction he assumed school was on, Nabiki took his face in her hands and made him look at her.
"Ranma, look at me." She spoke calmly, but forcefully enough for him to look at her in a panic. "As long as you're with me, I promise I won't allow her to hit you. Do you understand?"
His storm blue eyes flashed in confusion as she reached down and took his hand in her own. "See?" She held her hand up and showed Ranma. "You're with me right now, so I'll make sure that she won't hit you." Confusion remained, added with a dash of doubt, but Ranma nodded weakly to her.
Smiling up into Ranma's face, Nabiki patted his hand before walking him off to his first day of school.
Ranma looked fearfully around at all the boys spread about in various states of pain, bodies bent in ways that the human body was not meant to be twisted in. The sounds of wood on wood drew his attention even as they stepped over a hockey player whose mask had been broken by some blunt force. Nabiki sighed and shook her head as she watched the debacle taking place.
A boy of brown hair wielding a wooden kendo sword was dueling Akane Tendo and her mallet. Dark blue upper gi and dark black hakama swished as he moved his weapon rapidly around. Akane, amazingly, was swinging her mallet around as fast if not faster than the boy, the look on her face one of pure rage as her swings came closer and closer to his head.
It was when Akane pulled back out of the way of an over extended strike that the fight ended. With his swing gone wide and his eyes increasing as large as they could at his realized mistake, she reared her weapon of choice back over her head before smashing it into the head of the boy, driving him face first into the ground. Hefting her 'pervert basher' onto her shoulder with a sniff, she turned from the defeated kendoist with a muttered "Pervert." trailing after her.
Walking Ranma carefully over the defeated boys, Nabiki stopped before the very same kendoist to have been recently struck down. "Ranma, I'd like to introduce you to Tatewaki Kuno, our resident idiot."
Kuno's head came up quickly, propping his head on one hand as he drummed his fingers against the ground. "Do know that I hate thee, Nabiki Tendo." The young man said smoothly in a pretentious voice.
Nabiki smiled blithely down at Kuno. "I'm so heart broken."
Regaining his feet and standing as if the blow he had just received didn't happen, he pushed back the curl of brown hair on his brow and eyed Ranma as if unsure what he was looking at. "And what, pray tell, is this person doing with your personage?" continued the recovered kendoist. "A servant, perhaps?"
Nabiki's eyebrow twitched. "He's going to be living with us at our place, Kuno." She slapped her hand over her mouth the moment she said it.
The look of rage that lit in the boy's face and the sneer that grew meant only one thing. His brain had made a leap at logic without looking and fell off a cliff.
Into a pit of razor sharp, broken glass.
"Doth my ears deceive?" Kuno proclaimed loudly, brandishing his kendo stick once again as Nabiki tried to pull Ranma away from the overreacting Kuno. "Didst the mercenary Tendo say that this knave would share the same roof as the virtuous Akane Tendo?" Ranma eyed the kendo stick warily as Kuno continued overtop of Nabiki's attempt to diffuse the situation. "Nay. Nay, I say! That this peasant shall live in the same abode of such beauty is a sin against the Kami!"
"Look, Kuno, it's not…" the kendo stick that was jabbed into Nabiki's face made Ranma growl as it silenced the protesting girl.
"You do much honor to your family for trying to defend your fairer sister, Nabiki Tendo." Kuno had his eyes closed at the solemn act he perceived was coming from Nabiki. "Tis a great thing, the love between sisters. Were that you weren't of such degraded means or else, you too, would have the pleasure of my love for thee."
Nabiki's eyebrow twitched harder. Mercenary girl, she was used to, degrading herself?
Ranma's hand fell from hers, though she didn't notice it due in fact to her anger at this pompous jerk. She did notice when Kuno went flying backwards and impacted hard into the wall of the school. She looked to her left and noticed that Ranma's face had a decidedly angry glare on it, not to mention his fist was still held in front of him from where it had impacted with Kuno's face.
Kuno stood away from the wall as if the fist hadn't done any kind of damage to him at all. "You would dare raise your hand to the rising star of the kendo club, the blue thunder of furinkan high, Tatewaki Kuno?" He took a second step forward, or at least attempted to before his knees buckled and he fell face first into the dirt, unconscious at last.
Looking from the unconscious Kuno to Ranma who was calming down, she looked to the wall where Kuno had impacted. The concrete had been depressed in a perfect frame around the kendoist, spider cracks trailing up and away from the impact area. Kuno could take a hit, as was evidenced from Akane hitting him earlier, this was on a level that went beyond Kuno's endurance.
Taking Ranma's hand in her own, she wondered what was going on in that head of his before taking him off to the office, leaving Kuno outside as the tardy bell began to ring.
She knocked on the homeroom door for Ranma's room, waiting patiently until the teacher came over and opened the door for them. Handing the note from the office to the teacher and explaining Ranma's problems to the teacher, she smiled as she watched him get taken into the room. The smile lost a little bit of its power when she saw that Akane was also a student, forgetting all about her sister until she saw her.
Unable to console the fear on Ranma's face, she closed the door to the room and hoped that Akane would mind herself for at least one day.
The teacher broke off his lesson in history to open the door and the pigtailed pervert stood on the other side next to her sister. They talked for a moment, the teacher nodding at whatever it was that Nabiki was saying before the teacher took Ranma's hand and walked him up in front of the class. Nabiki smiled gently to Ranma, making Akane's hair bristle before Nabiki looked at her and the smiled dimmed somewhat before she closed the door.
"Class, I want to introduce you to a student who will be joining us from today on." He pushed Ranma forward gently, a nervous look on his face. "This is Ranma Saotome, he recently came to Nerima and will be staying for the time being." The classroom murmured back and forth to each other, the girls at Ranma's looks, the boys at the fear on his face.
"Now, normally, it is traditionally done where a student introduces himself to the class, but I want to make it very clear to you that Ranma had many problems under his father." The girls took on pitying looks at this while the boys wondered what he might have gone through. "Please be nice to him until he gets used to being here."
A chorused 'yes sensei' arose from all the students as the teacher directed Ranma to a seat by the window. Nervously, Ranma took his seat, his pigtail sticking straight out at the back of his head as he peered at all the people around him. Calling the classroom's attention back to him, the teacher began where he left off at.
Ranma listened, for the most part, still looking around at his students who were still casting glances at him from time to time. Making sure to keep an eye out for anyone that meant to hurt him, his gaze passed over everyone till it got to Akane. Akane was staring at him as if she wanted to hurt him, faint flickers of red appearing around her form from time to time as she glared a hole into him.
Unable to do anything but gulp, Ranma turned his eyes forward and hoped that she wouldn't clobber him like that boy got this morning.
As the bell rung for the period to end and lunch to begin, Ranma snapped to his feet. Unfortunately, the desk he was sitting at tore apart, unable to handle the sudden strength the boy put on it. Looking reflexively at the table that had 'fallen' apart, Ranma looked around at the people staring at him. Fearing that he was going to get hit again for messing up, Ranma opened the window next to him and jumped out of it.
There were a few gasps and running feet as they went over to the window Ranma had jumped out of, considering they were on the third floor of the school.
All but Akane stared downward as the boy fell feet first, landing with a soft disturbance of dust from where he touched down. There were a few mutters about how it wasn't possible to a few excited whispers from some girls and some dark mutters from the boys about showoffs. Ranma looked up, seeing that everyone was still staring at him and ran around the corner of the school, disappearing from sight.
She was nearly out of the room when the teacher called to her. "Ms. Tendo, do you know where Ranma went to?"
"Hopefully to hell." She thought. "No, Sensei. He jumped out of the window and ran off." She answered before turning and nearly making it out of the room.
"In that case, would you please make sure that he gets this?" The teacher handed her a list, not slowed down by the fact that a student jumped out a three story window and ran away. Around Furinkan, everything and anything could happen.
Akane's eyebrow twitched. "Of course, Sensei." She turned around and gave her teacher a smile that was as fake as it was sweet.
She saw her sister sitting under a tree with her two best friends, Yuka and Sayuri. Some wondered why the lightly brown haired Yuka and the dark brown haired Sayuri stayed around Akane all the time. Both girls were decent on the eye, nothing overly modest or exciting about them, just plain old fashioned girls. The reason was it was because they had heard the comment about 'plain, old fashioned girls'. They figured that if they hung around Akane long enough, someone might actually compare them to their 'friend' and say what nice girls they were in comparison to Akane.
Now don't them wrong, they did like being around Akane. They just didn't like all the prospective boys that hit on them in public getting introduced to the ground via Akane's 'Kami'.
"Akane, have you seen Ranma?" Nabiki asked as she approached her sister and her friends.
"No, I haven't seen that pervert." Akane snapped as she ate a bit from her bento. If she ever saw him again, it would be too soon.
"Who's Ranma?" Sayuri looked at Akane as if she was holding out on them.
"Who cares? He's just another pervert!" Akane shouted, nearly spitting the rice in her mouth all over.
Yuka could only sigh and shake her head. She was going to be dateless because of Akane, she could see it. All she wanted was at least one boyfriend before high school ended, was that so much to ask for?
"Ah, the fair Akane Tendo." A snide voice called from behind Nabiki, making all the girls blanch. Walking up to them with a bandage wrapped around his head was the kendoist, Kuno. "It is good to see that you have evaded that miscreant from this morning."
"Kuno, what are you doing here?" Nabiki asked, her patience with the boy running low as it was.
"Ah, Nabiki Tendo." Kuno turned to her, as if realizing she was there after all. "Have you also could to your senses and gotten rid of the foul sorcerer that you brought to school this morning? Perhaps you are atoning for your past indiscretions over the years with this first act?"
"Kuno, you are really pushing your limits with me." Nabiki cautioned him, giving her a look that should have burnt him on the spot.
"And what, pray tell, do you intend to do, Nabiki Tendo?" Kuno challenged her, crossing his arms in front of himself as he eyed her. "Are you going to cut off the acquisitions to the pictures of my love?"
Akane eyed her sister, she wasn't exactly thrilled that her sister had been taking pictures of her again. She was especially not thrilled hearing that she was selling those pics to the biggest pervert in Furinkan.
"Kuno, I'm warning you." Nabiki didn't know what she was going to do to get back at Kuno just yet, but boy, would he get it.
"Do your worst, Nabiki Tendo. The heavens smile down upon me." He raised his boken as if to emphasize that point, staring gallantly up into the stratosphere.
The heavens must have been listening to him as something seemed to fall from yon stratosphere and slam into Kuno's head, driving him bodily into the dirt. Instead of a heavenly body, Kami's foot, or even an aircraft that impacted with his head, standing on the back of Kuno's head, making sure the weight of his full body was behind him was one pigtailed artist.
Akane blink blinked in confusion, unsure of where he came from whereas Nabiki stared at Kuno as if to say 'I told you so'.
"Ranma, I was looking for you." Nabiki said as she turned her face to him, smiling slightly. Ranma turned to face her, blushing slightly as he looked at his feet. "I have your lunch with me, so if you want to eat, you have to come with me."
Ranma nodded and gave his hand to Nabiki, his head tilted downward and away from Nabiki's as Nabiki took his hand and began to take him away.
"Wait!" Kuno was on his feet and pointed his boken at Ranma. Ranma's hand swatted behind himself, turning Kuno's boken into confetti.
Kuno looked at his boken, confused as to why his weapon would choose that moment to turn into a party favor. Tossing the useless weapon away, he reached into his hakama and produced a second boken. "Halt, craven knave!" charging forward and slashing downward, Kuno cleaved through Ranma.
Well, he would have if Ranma had stayed still.
Sensing an imminent strike from behind him, Ranma scooped Nabiki into his arms and jumped upwards, clearing the three story window he had come out of and over the fencing on the roof four stories up. Putting Nabiki down, he glared downward at Kuno. Nabiki was a little surprised and had to bite her tongue to keep from screaming from the sudden jump, her reputation would have been ruined if she had shown any weakness.
"Come back down here, foul sorcerer, and fight honorably!" Kuno shouted up at Ranma, who still peered down at Kuno
"You call striking someone from behind honorable?" Yuka asked, not expecting an answer.
"Ranma." Nabiki called, getting the boy's attention. Offering him to follow her, Ranma took her hand once again and walked into the school via the roof access.
"Ha! My greatness has scared the foul sorcerer away." Kuno posed, hands on his hips as he laughed inanely.
The sound of a bike's bells rang out seconds before a ten-speed crashed into the back of the boy's head, bending the tire on impact and driving him face first into the dirt. All those present blinked dumbly at the sight of a ten-speed cruise missile flying out of nowhere and hitting with deadly accuracy on the kendoist's head.
Akane blinked in disbelief at the bike that was planted in Kuno's head, wondering if a bike could hit as hard as her Kami and what she would have to do in order to become it's disciple.
"Well," Sayuri said as she ate some more of her bento, "That would explain why he acts like a loon all the time."
Crouching just out of sight from a roof looking over the school yard, a shadowy form watched.
"Mr. Saotome." Ranma jumped in his seat, which had been replaced since lunch. "Please come up to the front of the class, if you would."
Looking around the room as if unsure why he was picked instead of anyone else, Ramna stood slowly and walked to the front of the class. As he moved, many of the girls sighed or whispered to each other at how he moved. Many of the boys grit their teeth, seeing as all the attention of the fairer sex seemed to be drawn to the clueless boy.
The teacher was an older man for the last period, with thick glasses that looked to have been made from leer jet windshields.
"Now, Mr. Saotome, I understand that you have had a rough time being with your father." Ranma winced, looking at his feet. "I also understand that you are a trained martial artist that has been on a long training journey not only across Japan, but into parts of China as well." The girls whispered when they heard of his upbringing. "I, however, believe in treating each and every student as if they are the same, with no cushioning and no leniency."
Ranma winced as the teacher's voice took a harder edge, a memory beginning to play back in his mind as the old man continued. "Do you understand what I have told you?"
Ranma remembered the sound of the men around him, the soft murmurs playing over his body as he looked at his father, who was kneeling in front of him. Ranma looked to his left at the fighters and the spectators, sitting in their seats, the room was dark, just barely enough light to see into the pit where one big muscled man was waiting for him.
"Look at me, Saotome." The teacher grabbed hold of his chin and turned his face back to him.
"Look at me, Boy." Genma muttered as he turned Ranma's chin to him roughly. "Your size isn't going to help you if you get caught. Keep out of his range until he tries to attack you, and then use his attack to your advantage."
Ranma looked back at the man who was just staring at him, smiling darkly as he flexed his arms.
"You better win this time, boy, or I swear that the Neko-Ken training is going to look like a pipe dream." Genma gripped his shoulder hard, making him wince. "We don't have any money left, and if I have to leave you behind in another village to take the blame, then next time I'll let them hang you."
Ranma shivered as he looked at the man in the ring as the man started to laugh at him, seeing the fear on the child's face.
"Saotome." A voice called to him. "Saotome." The voice called louder, the hand on his shoulder gripping tighter.
"Mr. Saotome!" The teacher's voice broke through his daydream, bringing Ranma screaming back to the present as he leapt backwards and into the classroom door.
The teacher looked at him, confused as to his reaction. Ranma sweated hard, clear water running from his brow down across his face and cheeks, his eyes wild and unfocused. Feeling the need to flee, Ranma pulled at the door hard, ripping it from its frame and threw down on the ground hard before running off into the school.
He fled down the halls, not knowing where he was going or where he could be safe, but he needed to flee. They were calling to him again, loudly in his ears as he ran through the halls. He came to the stairs and froze, unsure as to where he should flee to. Up or down was the same to him, as long as he could escape. He heard steps coming from up and his decision was made for him as he jumped down the stairs, taking the flights one leap at a time.
He almost made it to the ground floor, until Kuno came from around the corner at the bottom, looking up in shock, then anger as he pulled for his boken. He almost got it out before Ranma stomped into his face, using the kendoist as a springboard to propel him down the hallway and toward the front doors.
Kuno managed to stay on his feet, pulling his boken free and giving chase after the boy who had offended him three times now. "Stay thy feet, foul sorcerer! You shall not flee me this time!" he shouted, charging head long after him.
Ranma didn't stop to open the doors with his hands or feet. Flinging his hand forward with a swiping motion, the doorway blew open into pieces that clattered to the ground. Ranma slipped briefly on the loose wood, taking a moment to balance himself before jumping outward and for the safety of the roofs.
Looking as if he would escape, a blur jumped from the top of the school and landed on the rising Saotome's head, pushing his jump downward and forcing him to land earlier than he expected.
"Well done, Sasuke!" Kuno shouted out as he closed into melee range, using the short slashing range of his sword to keep Ranma confined. If Ranma tried to back up, Kuno would rush him. If he tried to sidestep, the lightning quick jabs of the boken snapped out, hemming back in front of the angry kendoist. Giving no quarter to the terrified boy, he continued his relentless assault.
Ranma had literally no where to run to, his fear was blinding him to what was around him, so much so that he never thought of simply jumping away from the attacks. He could only back pedal, dodging the rapid fire thrusts that the kendoist was throwing at him. He was going to get hit again, he knew it in his heart, and the pain would come afterwards. Only this time the pain wouldn't stop with one blow, it would come again and again, getting worse and worse, just like…
His thoughts were cut as his foot tripped over something, his ankle hitting something that wouldn't budge when he hit it, causing hit to fall backwards and land roughly. He saw Kuno rear back his kendo stick with both hands, a mad glee on his face as he shouted, "I have you!"
He was hit in the stomach hard by a metal ball on a pole, knocking him back and away from Ranma. Looking up at where the weapon was thrown, Kuno called out, "Who would dare interrupt an…?" He thought he heard a bike's bell.
Kuno could only watch in a sick fascination as a ten-speed bike seemed to appear out of no where five feet in front of his face. It moved slowly through the air at him and his brain could only wonder as to how a bike could move so slowly and yet still stay in the air as it was. Something about this seemed familiar to him, but his brain scoffed at that. Surely he had never been hit with a bike before, it must only be his imagination.
His head snapped back as the tire wrapped around his head, meshing his chin, face, and upper head with the warped metal of the rim before Kuno fell backwards, unconscious.
Ranma wasted no time, scrambling onto his feet and turning away from the fallen Kuno, fleeing for his mortal life out of the school grounds and off into the streets of Nerima.
From where he stood landed a tall shadow with female features, lavender hair blowing lightly in the wind as she reached down and pulled her bonbori free from the ground where she had tossed it. Picking up the other one that had stunned the kendoist, she glared hotly down at him before turning her eyes after the fleeing boy. Jumping to the nearest roof, she gave chase.
Soun looked up from his newspaper, a cigarette hanging from his mouth as he looked to his eldest daughter. "Yes, Kasumi, what is it?"
Kasumi kneeled in front of her father, placing her hands before her and bowing deeply over her hands. "Please allow me to resume my training of the Anything Goes art." Kasumi spoke calmly, yet that firmness seeming to strengthen as she spoke.
Soun dropped the cigarette out of his mouth in surprise that his eldest daughter, the pacifist and homemaker, would want to continue the art. Exclaiming as the cigarette began to ignite his pants, Soun smacked it and the burning embers out on his leg before looking long and hard at Kasumi, who remained bowed in front of him.
Crossing his arms in front of him, he closed his eyes and spoke firmly. "No."
Kasumi sat up abruptly, snapping her head up at her father's announcement. "But father…"
"Before you ask me to change my mind, Kasumi, I want you to understand something." Soun spoke as he looked hard at his daughter. "The art of Anything Goes is an art of stealth, deception, and evasion. These skills taught to me and Genma are the primary tenets of Musabetsu Kakuto, the Anything Goes. Could you honestly, knowing full well of your skill once mastered, deceive anyone willfully and knowing that by doing so, you were denying them something important?"
Kasumi bit her lip and averted her gaze from her father.
Soun continued. "Good examples of what the Anything Goes can do to you are your sister and Genma." Soun let this sink in before continuing. "Your sister hates any boy of the age of fifteen to sixty, willfully labeling anyone who meets these criteria 'Pervert'. My best friend took his child from his mother, deceiving her, trained him in some of the worst examples of martial arts known to man, and beat him almost constantly. Is that the kind of art you really want to learn?"
"No father." Kasumi spoke sadly, her face hidden behind the locks of hair around her face as she tilted her head downward. "I just wished I could learn the art in order to understand Ranma more, but I guess I was wrong."
Soun gnawed at his lip as he looked at his daughter. "You've taken an interest in the young lad." It was an accusation, pure and simple. Kasumi didn't deny what her father said, so he continued. "Is it because you're worried about him, or because you want to help him?"
Kasumi looked sadly up into her father's face, eyes filled with unshed tears. "I read the Neko-Ken." She spoke sadly. Soun flinched, but said nothing. "I realized how little I understand about the art, any art, since mother…"
Kasumi inhaled, her breath shuddering as she breathed deeply.
"I want to do what is right, but I can't do that if I don't understand anything going on around me." Kasumi tucked her head, bringing her hands to her face as she cried into them. "I just want to help…"
The sound of something hitting the roof hard jarred them from their conversation. They moved to step outside only to see a shadow come appear above them, moving slowly forward before growing larger. The form the shadow belonged to landed softly in the grass, turning on his heel as he rushed for the living room. He jumped through the air, arms in front of him until he hit Kasumi mid-lunge and wrapped himself around her, pulling her down to the floor.
Kasumi goggled at Ranma's behavior, Soun staring worriedly at his daughter and then the boy clamped firmly around her waist. He was shivering uncontrollably, whimpering softly as he buried his head into her side. Kasumi cradled Ranma to her, stroking his hair and his back gently as she made a calming sound, attempting to get him to relax from his coiled spring position and sit up again. Kasumi looked up at her father with pleading eyes, whether to help her or something else, Soun thought long and hard as he watched the two.
"You stay with Ranma." Soun said as he stood up, heading for the kitchen. "I just hope everyone can deal with stir-fry tonight."
Walking into a cuddle session with Kasumi and Ranma, Nabiki sighed. Kasumi looked up at her sister, gesturing with her finger to be silent before she looked back down at the dozing boy. "He arrived about thirty minutes ago, scared out of his mind." Kasumi whispered to a crouching Nabiki.
"I didn't hear about anything freaking him out at school." Nabiki whispered back, Ranma moaning in his sleep as he momentarily tightened his grip on Kasumi.
Nabiki pulled her mini camera out and was about to take a picture when Akane walked into the room. "What the hell do you think you're doing to my sister, you pervert?" the youngest Tendo shouted, book bag dropped so that she could get a two handed grip on her mallet.
Ranma bolted awake and immediately jumped behind Kasumi, crouching down behind her to make a smaller target.
"Akane! I just got him to sleep, too!" Kasumi was upset, outraged was a better word for it, but she didn't know if she could voice it right without it sounding silly.
"You make one swing in his direction, Akane, and I'll spread a rumor that you only hit people you like, and the harder you hit them, the more you like them." Nabiki practically hissed at her sister, sending blades of death from her eyes.
"You wouldn't dare." Akane glared hotly at Nabiki.
"Try me. It'll be the last time you cross me, I guarantee it." Nabiki sat, daring Akane to cross the proverbial line.
"What is going on out here?" Soun boomed as he walked into the living/dining room from the kitchen, his Demon Head attack in full swing.
"Daddy, Nabiki's threatening me with a lie." Akane pointed her mallet toward Nabiki.
"She's being a spoiled little princess again." Nabiki pointed back, batting the mallet head away from her general vicinity.
Soun glared hotly at his two youngest daughters. "I'm glad your mother is dead. She would be ashamed of the both of you. I certainly am." His Demon Head attack subsiding, Soun gave them a disparaging look. Both of them looked at the floor guiltily, Akane's mallet disappearing out of sight the moment her anger died.
Taking the stir-fry pan to the table and setting it on a metal stand, Soun sat at the head of the table with a stern gaze directed at all of his children. "Nabiki, I would have thought that you would know better than to alienate your own family after that yakuza business." She winced while Akane smirked. "Akane, if I ever hear of you attacking Ranma in my house ever again, I will ban you from using the Anything Goes ever again."
Akane made to protest and Soun raised an eyebrow at her. She wisely kept quiet.
"Kasumi," she turned to face him properly, "I understand why you want me to teach you, but understand that I will not make the same mistake a second time, so please do not ask it of me." Giving him a hurt look, she nodded her head to him.
Nodding his head after he had spoken his peace, he looked around the dining room. "Where's Ranma?"
The girls blink blinked before looking to Kasumi's side. Where Ranma had been once he had been woken up, he had mysteriously disappeared from. Looking around the room and out in the yard resulted in nothing. Kasumi noticed him first from where she was standing in the kitchen, her eyes straying back across the dining room and at the table itself.
In his haste to escape Soun's all encompassing Demon Head, Ranma had managed to slide himself underneath the foot tall table and hid. Coming out to the table, Kasumi leaned down in front of Ranma's face, Soun's eyes bugging out as his daughter stuck her rear in the air at the table.
"It's alright, Ranma." Kasumi spoke to him sweetly, smiling gently at him. "The bad face went away. You can come out now."
Kasumi sat up slowly, much to the relief of her father only to have his eyes grow to saucers as he watched Ranma crawl out of a space that should have been physically too small for his boy form.
And his girl form for that fact.
Calling in his children after finding Ranma, they sat to a quiet dinner. Ranma looked around at each of them, their looks of tempered rage, open hostility, mild acceptance, and deep thinking on the faces of Akane, Nabiki, Kasumi, and Soun respectively. Ranma had heard them talking from under the table, and couldn't help but feel that he was the reason why everyone was upset.
"Ranma." Soun spoke to him, drawing his attention to him. "When you're done eating, meet me in the dojo.
Soun put his chopsticks down and headed for the walkway toward the dojo. He stopped in the hallway, looking over his shoulder. "I expect that we will not be disturbed. Am I making myself clear, girls?"
They eyed each other in confusion, momentarily putting aside their differences before acknowledging their father. Nodding his head, he walked out of the room and headed for the dojo.
Looking at the girls who were looking back at him, he asked softly, "Did I do something wrong?"
Nabiki twitched, the only sister to move as a shiver passed through her.
"You can actually talk?" Akane asked, unsure if her brain was playing tricks on her or not. Nabiki and Kasumi both gave her a disappointed look.
Tilting his eyes to his food in front of him, he placed his chopsticks on the table and stood up. If he had done something wrong, he didn't want to throw up anymore food than he had to, especially when he started getting hit in the stomach. He'd get beat even harder for wasting food.
He walked out to the dojo slowly, moving to the edge of the walkway before hopping down gently. His feet were cold as they moved across the stone path leading to the doorway and the stone steps that lead inside to the dojo. He slid the door open as silently as he could, watching as Mr. Tendo moved through a basic stance of Anything Goes, though he stopped once in awhile and changed his stance or arms.
Ranma kneeled by the doorway and waited for him to finish. He watched as the father flowed through a beginner's level kata of the school, only he changed it slightly, putting in a variation or an alteration as he restarted from the beginning over and over again. Ranma studied him intently, watching as he started over and over many times until he was satisfied and moved on to the next step of the kata.
"What do you think, Ranma?" Soun asked in the middle of his kata, as he continued to modify it over and over.
Ranma flinched. He'd never been asked his opinion before.
Soun saw the conflict in his face and stopped his kata, turning to Ranma with his hands on his hips. "I want to know if you think its Anything Goes or not."
Ranma tilted his head for a second before nodding.
"Is it the Anything Goes your father taught you?" Soun asked, not having moved from where he stood.
Ranma shook his head immediately.
"If I showed you how to do this, will you make me a promise?" Soun asked him, watching as Ranma nodded almost instantly. "Come here, son." Soun beckoned to Ranma, to which Ranma jumped to his feet before rushing in front of Soun and kneeled again.
Soun kneeled down in front of Ranma, meeting him eye to eye. "I want you to understand something before I ask you again, Ranma. I don't think you know what I'm trying to ask you." Soun settled himself, relaxing his body and his mind to show the boy no ill intend. "Kasumi came to me earlier today asking for me to teach her the Anything Goes."
He explained himself to Ranma about the conversation that he had with her, adding the details of her emotional state, how she reacted, even the question about if she cared for Ranma or not. He stopped to let the boy process all this before he could continue.
"Do you think I made the right choice, Ranma?" Ranma looked like he was going to freak out, but Soun rephrased himself, "Should I allow my oldest daughter to learn the Anything Goes?"
Ranma didn't hesitate, shaking his head emphatically no.
Soun sighed, a weight lifting off of his shoulders. "Still, she is my daughter, and I feel that I have to teach her some way to understand you better, even if the Anything Goes is not to be taught to her."
"You shouldn't." Ranma rasped. His throat hurt, his voice hadn't been used in so long, he must have talked a lot today as he cleared his throat. "I'm a stranger." Ranma coughed into his hand before continuing. "I'm not worth helping."
Soun stared at Ranma until Ranma couldn't maintain the gaze, turning his face down. "Son," Soun started, hesitating before continuing, "Kasumi is an important part of this household because she has sacrificed so much for all of us. She finished high school with no friends, and she never got the chance to date anyone her own age. At a very young age, she was forced to grow up too soon, becoming the mother for two sisters that didn't know how to live without one."
Soun turned to his wife's altar before he continued to speak. "I was devastated by my wife's passing. Unable to cope with the loss of the one person that made me whole, I closed in on myself and wanted to join her. It was watching Kasumi that made me realize that I was shaming my wife's memory the longer I made Kasumi shoulder more and more of the household. I didn't have a daughter the day she took up her responsibilities, I had a woman who was years older than she should have been.
"I want to give her something in return, the one thing that I can't give her." Soun said as he turned his moist eyes to Ranma, who looked even guiltier. "It may be the only wish I can ever grant my daughter, and atone for my ineptitude when she became the mother for Nabiki and Akane." Soun's face hardened as he took stock of himself and tightened his guard over his heart. "I am going to do something that will bring the wrath of my Master down on this house and my family. I know that you have a hard enough time defending yourself, but I want you to know that I don't think any less of you."
Ranma looked up at Soun with disbelief and a little fear. "If and when my Master comes, I would appreciate it if you could take my children and flee with them. My master is much like your father, except that he is much worse. Far worse than Genma ever was." Ranma blanched at the thought of someone worse than Genma. "I will not be able to stop my master, he has spent years creating Anything Goes and is the founder of the art. I will lose, and lose badly.
"If I teach you this, you must promise me that you will flee with them and not come back." Soun looked firmly into Ranma's eyes, gauging the boy's morals.
Ranma thought long and hard about this. His father had always told him that any new techniques he could learn, he should learn them immediately then run for the hills once he had learned all that he could, or once his father had upset the head of the dojo. This time, he was being asked by the head of not only the house he was allowed to live in, but the dojo he would possibly train in to run away if it was necessary.
Ranma took a breath and gulped deeply before he looked Soun in the eye and nodded. Soun stared at him hard for a moment before nodding and relaxing himself from his rigid pose. "Now I can explain to you what I intend to do." He sighed as he ended one life in himself before opening his eyes and regarded Ranma. "I am sealing the original Anything Goes I was taught by the master. By doing so, I intend to create a new form of Anything Goes from it, a form that is honorable to use and does not lead down the dark aspects of what the original did."
Ranma nodded as Soun stood, motioning Ranma to stand. "I will teach you all I know of my school before I seal the arts, never to be used again. You will be my only graduate of Tendo Ryu. Once you have mastered my school's art, I want you to help me create Shin Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu."
Taking a shoulder width stance, hands in front of him and fists at his waist, Ranma bowed forward, head bowed before Soun.
Kasumi slept as well, though her sleep was not as restful as it could have been. Still, she dreamt of learning her family's art from her father, being allowed not only to be the home maker, but home defender as well. She imagined in her dream the things she could do to fend off those who would invade the sanctity of her house, and what she would do to Mr. Saotome if she ever saw him again.
Nabiki slept in her own world of dreams as well, peacefully content after so many years. She got to dream of a dark haired man who loved her for who she was, uncaring what others said about her. They would whisper sweet nothings in each other's ears, letting their love develop and grow as they learned of each other. She would lean in close to him, her eyes closed as she could feel his breath against her lips before…
Well, you get the idea.
Akane slept her own peaceful dreams as well, though for different reasons. Though she had been banned from striking the young Saotome in her father's house, she had not been told she could not strike him outside of the house. She dreamt of how she would make the pervert pay for taking advantage of her sweet, innocent sister and of how she would get even with her more nefarious sister. She giggled softly to herself at the malleting that would make her and Mallet-sama very happy
Ranma slept in his room, his head filled with what he had been told by Mr. Tendo. It was a big task he was being given, something he felt that he had no right accepting. He had given his word though, the one thing his father couldn't take away from him, no matter how hard he had tried. He made a promise, and he would not break his promise.
Just like the promise to his childhood friend.
While the house slept, a shadow crawled up to Ranma's window and gazed in from outside. The form was the same from the school, the lavender hair of the girl barely seen in the darkness. She watched the boy who slept for once in peaceful dreams, not the twisting and turning she had watched from the days she had tracked them in her home land.
Here was a man she could love, a man who was every bit her better and then some. She could make him want to come back with her, it wouldn't take much. Only one person had opposed her, and hopefully she had time enough to do what needed to be done. If she could before they arrived, there was very little they could do about it.
Sliding away from the window and off into the night, she made her plans.
Genma Saotome Must Die!
I know you guys all hate him and stuff for what he did to Ranma, but having him murdered for what he did is just too easy for the guy. As the old saying goes, You reap what you sow, and the reaping has just begun.
I think this chapter was a lot lighter than the last three, except for that bit with Ranma's past. If it wasn't, let me know. Can't do better if I don't get opinions, and I know you guys are gonna be honest with me, right?
Demon Head: A specialty branch of the Tendo school of Anything Goes martial arts, this maneuver is not so much an attack as it is a paralyzing maneuver. By focusing one's spirit energy (ki/chi) into the face, one can project a sense of terror and confusion, temporarily causing the person/s who sees this technique to freeze in fear. A fatal drawback to the technique is that it is a visually based attack. If you don't see it, it doesn't work.
Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu: Literally translated, it means School of Indiscriminate Grappling, other wise known as Anything Goes. The branches of the school were seperated into three parts, Ganso Musabetsu Kakuto, Musabetsu Kakuto Saotome Ryu, and Musabetsu Kakuto Tendo Ryu. The Tendo version of the art was made to take on many enemies at once in melee combat, designed to inflict indiscriminate damage on anything that got close to the practicioner. The Saotome version was designed around the art of one on one combat, disabling a single person within seconds of combat being joined and moving on to the next foe. Ganso Musabetsu Kakuto means Founding school of Anything Goes and is believed to be the originator of both versions of Musabetsu Kakuto. However, no records indicate that anyone still alive practices this art in any form.
