A Chinese Connection

Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma ½ or any related characters in any way, shape or form.

Author’s Notes: originally, this oneshot was going to basically be the equivalent of “Maternity”, from Childhood Loyalties, told through Ranma’s Point of View. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, I realized that would be cheap and it finally evolved into its present format, for better or worse.

If folks feel so inclined, I’m interested if anyone has any prompts they want to throw my way and see what I can write based on them for this anthology.

Paternity

Ranma twisted the very minimum needed to let the punch whistle harmlessly past, deflected a spin-kick with a wave of his forearm, hopped casually over his opponent’s head, and then thrust out his arm, punching through an obvious hole in their defense with sufficient force to send his opponent sprawling on the ground. He made no effort to capitalize on this, instead simply standing there, stance loose and ready, and clicked his tongue in good-natured mockery.

“I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times now; you need to work on that reaction time, Cayenne.”

His ‘sparring opponent’, his ten-year-old son, rubbed his head and grinned ruefully, an expression that reminded Ranma of both himself and his wife, before Cayenne pushed himself to his feet. To Ranma’s pride, he didn’t stop to brush himself off or make excuses- no sooner had he found his footing then he leapt into a fresh attack. Of course, he didn’t have enough speed to catch his father off-guard, and Ranma easily sidestepped at the last moment, tapping Cayenne on the back of his head as he rushed past. The young Saotome boy spun on his heel, simultaneously using the motion to lash out in a kick… a move that was a bit too ambitious, as he lost his balance and tumbled over.

“Almost, my boy, but not quite.” Ranma said, stepping in and heaving the blue-haired Japanese/Chinese boy up again, then leaping back to evade a rapid one-two punch-kick combo, grinning at his son’s efforts. The boy grinned back, for a moment, then took on an expression of grim determination and resumed the attack.

Back and forth they moved, Cayenne primarily the offensive one, Ranma simply dodging and deflecting, testing his son’s accuracy and speed, occasionally striking his own, carefully measured blow to highlight a particular weakness in Cayenne’s defenses. Oh, that didn’t mean that Cayenne wasn’t getting his share of bruises, but only if Ranma thought such a measure was necessary to highlight his lesson, and there was certainly no malice in their fight… although a casual observer would be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

“You’re getting predictable, dad- what’s wrong? Run out of tricks already?” Cayenne taunted, his grin more ‘adrenaline rush’ then ‘mocking’.

“Arrogant little pup! I’ve got more tricks in my little finger then you have in your whole body!” Ranma replied, his expression putting a total lie to any claims towards seriousness that his tone might have managed to muster.

“Oh, so that’s where you’re keeping it, huh?”

At that, Ranma took on an exaggerated expression of disappointment and shook his head slowly. “Is that the best you can do? The Saotomes have a tradition of being able to drive people wild with just a few words; you disappoint me, Cayenne.” As much as he might have sounded like Genma, his body language made it perfectly obvious that he wasn’t serious.

“I thought the Saotome tradition was being the martial artist equivalent of cockroaches.” Cayenne mused thoughtfully, then dodged an obviously-broadcast punch with his own take on his father’s aggravating smirk.

Another half-hour or so later, Cayenne Saotome was breathing heavily, his father less so, the two standing motionless in battle-stances in front of each other. It was Ranma who relaxed out of his stance first.

“Well, that’s enough of that. You did good, son. Time to go home.”

“What, you worn out, dad?” Cayenne taunted, trying to hide the fact he was gasping for breath. “Your age catching up with you?”

“Hardly.” Ranma replied, rolling his eyes dramatically. “But your mother’s expecting us back, and she’s had to look after that Hibiki girl today too, so she’s not going to be very happy if we’re late.”

“Ishi is there?” Cayenne asked, sounding far from happy at the possibility. “Um… could we maybe stay here a little longer? Say, until she wanders away looking for home?” He asked hopefully.

“What did you two do now?” Ranma asked.

“She started it!” Cayenne protested. “She yanked on my hair and tried to pour ink over my head- said I’d look halfway like a Japanese with my hair dyed black!”

“And you…?” Ranma replied patiently.

“I punched her in the face.” Cayenne admitted immediately. Having a Joketsuzoku mother meant no belief whatsoever in it being wrong to hit girls- only that it was wrong to hit people who didn’t deserve it. Teaching him exactly what that meant had been the hard part.

“And then…?” Ranma asked, not surprised by this turn of events.

“She punched me back and tried to choke me, so I kicked her in the gut, broke her umbrella over her head and ran for cover.” Cayenne admitted.

“So that’s why you were so eager to come on today’s sparring lesson…” Ranma said, nonplussed. “Still, we have to go- don’t worry, she won’t be holding a grudge over something like that.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” Cayenne muttered.

“Honestly? No. She’s just like her old man in that.” Ranma admitted. “But I’ll be there, and so will your mom; you know Ishi won’t try anything around her.”

“Oh yeah.” Cayenne admitted, then shivered. “Mom’s scary when she wants to be.”

“She’s actually calmed down a lot… in public at least.” Ranma unthinkingly muttered.

“Dad!” Cayenne protested. “I don’t wanna hear that stuff!”

Ranma laughed. “Where’d ya think you came from, squirt? Come on, we need to get moving.”

He tussled Cayenne’s hair affectionately, his son spluttering in prepubescent indignation and ducking away from Ranma’s hand, then started in the direction of home.