Well, at last it is ready. This is my first story for FFML, but please don't
think you have to be gentle because of that. I'm tough. I can take it. ^_^ I
welcome C&C of any and all kinds. Please send e-mail to: rbarnes@moscow.com.

I'd like to send a BIG thank you to my prereaders, Dave Eddy, Susan  Doenime
and Gary Kleppe. If it's bad I get the blame, but if it's good, they deserve
a large chunk of the credit. I literally couldn't have done it without them.
Thanks, folks.

This story is set somewhere in the rather long middle period of the Ranma
canon story timeline after Ukyou's arrival and just before Nodoka's. Herb,
Saffron and the aborted wedding are in the future. Because of its length, I
had to whack it into two chunks. Since there is a prolog, that seemed a good
place to make the cut. I hope it doesn't break the continuity of the story
too much.




The Masks We Must Wear 

Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction by Bob Barnes 

PROLOG

     The eastern sky was lightening with the first promise
of the sun's arrival. The glow began to illuminate the
corners of a small bedroom. Lying on a futon along one side
of the room was a snoring panda. A young man lying on
another futon across the room looked up from the book he was
laboring over and snorted derisively at all the noise. 'I
guess even "A true marital artist" likes to sleep in on
Sundays,' he thought to himself. He turned back to the thick
hardbound book and, while referring frequently to his
English/Japanese dictionary, resumed laboriously sounding
out the unfamiliar English words. "Hmm... Opti-mum
resolu-tion of con-flict may not always resol... no...
result. result... nani? (a quick reference to the
dictionary) Ah, so... result -- through vic-tory." He
mentally translated the sentence to Japanese. "Ah! Victory
is not always the best way for a conflict to end. Yes. Wait,
that doesn't make sense..." A brief flurry of note taking. 

     The panda suddenly gasped, snorted and opened his eyes.
He gave a barking growl to get the young man's attention and
held up a sign: "Why are you waking me up by mumbling in
foreign languages?"

     "Ah... It's a test, Pop. Yeah, a big English test at
school. I'm studying for it." 

     The panda flopped his head back down while holding up
another sign: "Good Boy!" flip. "Wake me when breakfast is
ready." The panda went back to sleep and resumed snoring. 

     The young man returned to his book "There-fore
consid-er the... no... ah... these oth-er op-tions..."
Another trip to the dictionary and more mental translation.
"Why is English so damned hard? Oh well, this is good
stuff..." More note taking. 

     Muttering quietly to himself he continued to struggle
his way through the difficult book completley losing track
of the time until... 

     Sometime later there was a knock and the door of the
bedroom slid open. A young woman entered the room a step and
first stared intently at the sleeping panda for a moment
then turned to look at the oblivious young man. Softly,
"Good morning, it's time to start getting ready." The panda
stopped snoring and began to wake up. More loudly and
harshly, "Ranma! Get up you Baka! You need to get ready. You
_do_ remember you promised to help me today, don't you?" 

     Ranma looked first at the stirring panda and then at
the young woman. He shrugged and said, "All right! All
right. I'm up already. I remember." He looked at her
ironically, "Well? I need to get dressed... or are you going
to stay there and watch me?" *snort* "And you call _me_ a
pervert, Akane!" 

     Akane started a slow burn. "Ranma no baka! You just
wish I'd stay and watch!" *hmmmph* She stepped back into the
hall and slammed the door. 

     Ranma gathered up the books and papers and dumped them
on his futon. He dressed quickly and left for the bathroom. 

     The panda climbed to his feet and stretched. Shuffling
over to Ranma's futon he thought, 'Study is all very well,
but losing sleep is stupid.' As he thought, the panda
stared at the incomprehensible English words of the book's
title: 

Sun Tzu Reconsidered: Conflict And Crisis In The Modern Era
>From A Classical Asian Perspective
By
The International Institute For Strategic Studies.

And the paper label in Japanese: If found please return to
Reference Desk, Nerima Branch, Tokyo Public Library

     'What an idiot that boy is. He should concentrate on
martial arts!' The panda walked to the door to begin his
morning search for breakfast. 'Ranma is so stupid,
sometimes.' 

          - = O = -  - = O = - 

Ranma 1/2 characters and situations are the property of
Rumiko Takahashi and licensees. They are used in this story
without permission.

The rest of the story is in the next message...