Quantum Destinies
A Ranma Fanfic
By Steven Thesken (jurai-knight@home.com)
This is purely a work of fanfiction done for fun, so please read and
enjoy. Comments and Criticisms are always welcome. It helps me to
know what is working, and what I need to work on to improve my
writing. Flames are ejected into an appropriate receptacle.
This idea occurred to me after I finished the science-fiction novel
"Paths to Otherwhere" by James P. Hogan, a great book by an author I
have long liked.
Ranma and all other associated characters are owned by Kitty and the
ever-creative Rumiko Takahashi. This is primarily a Ranma fanfic,
but I will be bringing in characters from other series for added color.
They will mainly be used for lesser roles or villains. Any new
characters are the property of the author.
Previous chapters of this story may be found at these websites, or you
can email the author for them:
Cursed One's Anime Fanfiction
http://members.xoom.com/Cursed_One/fanfic.html
Fanfiction Selections at:
http://members.xoom.com/DNyx/index.html
Version 1.0 of this story may also be found here:
Gorlando's Tribute to Ranma 1/2
http://gorlando.shatazar.com/Anime/ranma/index.html
Author's Note: Thoughts will be bracketed by a * on each end. Any
speech other than Japanese will be bracketed by < and >.
The list of reoccurring worlds:
Earth #0001-001 - The world of Scholar Ranma (Imperial Earth)
Earth #0016-496 - The world of Martial Nabiki (Nabiki �)
Chapter One contains a brief explanation of some of the terminology
and pseudo-science used.
What has gone before in this story (or at least what will help you
understand what is going on):
On a parallel Earth that diverged from the standard Ranma timeline
over five hundred years ago, the Empire of Japan rules almost half the
world and has done so for almost a century. A young scientist named
Ranma Saotome used a device he invented that enabled him to link
mentally with alternate versions of himself on other timelines, but on
his first contact he unintentionally duplicated the skills of a martial
artist version of himself. After viewing some other alternate lives and
dealing with some unexpected situations, Ranma decided to intensify
his workouts to bring himself up to the level of his counterpart. Dean
Fuyutsuki mentioned a mysterious plan that involved Ranma and
several of the cast. Meanwhile, Soun put the first stage of his plan
into play to ensnare Ranma, and Hinako learned something about
Ranma's past. Nabiki snuck into Ranma's lab and managed to activate
his device, contacting and duplicating the skills from an alternate
version of herself, one who went on the ten-year training journey with
Genma instead of Ranma. Forever changed by the experience, Nabiki
dealt with two enemies using her new skills and has decided to make
Ranma an offer that will prove difficult for the boy scientist to refuse.
Chapter 5 - Walking the Path of a True Martial Artist
***** Earth #0001-001
Nabiki found herself standing on a rocky promontory, dressed in her
gray uniform, staring out over the crashing ocean waves far below.
The far surroundings had a hazy quality to them, and the sky was a
pale pink and reddish-orange as the sun settled down in the western
sky. It was a familiar scene to her, but her memory was fuzzy as to
why. The skirt of her Academy uniform rustled almost soundlessly
around her legs.
"Hello," said a voice behind her. Nabiki slowly turned around, and
the figure that she saw behind her was in very sharp contrast to the
haziness of her surroundings, somehow being more "real" than the rest
of the world was. The face on the figure was Nabiki's own, and she
blinked at the sight before quickly taking in the rest of the image
before her.
The other Nabiki was dressed in Chinese-style garb, a loose silk
shirt, light green in color, with wooden ties securing the front, and
loose, black gi pants with the ankle cuffs tied snugly. A sense of an
athletic and trimly-muscled figure was only partly concealed beneath
the loose clothing. Her feet were shod in black, slipper-like shoes.
Nabiki's doppelganger stood in a relaxed stance, her face smiling as
she watched the setting sun.
"Who are you?" asked Nabiki in surprise, although her oddly
fragmented memories suddenly held the answer a moment after she
had asked the question. Her double dropped her eyes from watching
the skies to look into Nabiki's own.
"I'm Nabiki Tendou, Heir to the Anything-Goes School of Martial
Arts," the other Nabiki said, bowing slightly. "Pleased to meet you."
"What?" asked Nabiki, suddenly feeling confused. Her memories
were a little frayed at the edges, and this dream (for she was certain
now that it was a dream, but she could not say how she knew) was
different from any that she could remember ever having before. She
had done something before she had gone to sleep, but she could not
quite grasp what.
"Take your time," said her double and then sat down on the grass.
"I guess I'm a little more used to weirdness like this."
"Ranma's device," Nabiki finally remembered. "It did something to
me." She moved away from the edge of the cliff and sat down in front
of her duplicate. A moment later, her posture became a mirror of the
martial artist version of herself.
"What do you remember?" asked Martial-Nabiki, her hands resting
on her knees as she sat cross-legged.
"I activated the device, and something happened," said Nabiki, her
face showing a slight frown as she struggled somewhat to remember.
"I became you for a time." Nabiki suddenly remembered how free that
she had felt, how gloriously free. No regimentation to her life, no
need to wear a uniform, her future not planned out to the last detail,
just being able to embrace each day as it came and live life to the
fullest measure possible.
"Interesting," said Martial-Nabiki, calmly looking around at their
surroundings. As she watched, images suddenly began to materialize
in the air, fragments of Nabiki's memories. Martial-Nabiki watched
them with interest, laughing at some, and looking sad at others. They
floated in the air like bubbles, each one only showing for an instant
before being replaced by another. Neither of the girls seemed to be in
control of them, and that was made clear when Nabiki started to see
memories that she knew were not her own.
"What's going on?" Nabiki asked, staring at one image that seemed
to be more powerful than many of the others. She turned to look at the
other Nabiki, and her duplicate was frowning.
"It's nothing that you need to worry about," said her double, rising
to her feet. "But that is Jusenkyou Valley. A place that changed my
life, in more ways than one." A reflected image, as if seen in a pool of
water, appeared in another bubble of memories. This image was of a
handsome young man dressed much as her martial artist doppelganger
was, and there was sadness on his face.
"Who is that?" asked Nabiki, her eyes bright as she looked at her
duplicate. "He's gorgeous. Is he your brother or something on your
world?" She turned to look back at the image for another moment,
before she heard muffled laughter behind her. When she turned
around, that same young man was there that had been in the bubble
image.
"Surprise," said Nabiki-kun to a startled Nabiki. "Behold the power
of Jusenkyou." All of the memories of that first transformation in the
cursed Spring of Drowned Man were suddenly Nabiki's, and she was
only able to stare in shock at the male version of herself. Nabiki-kun
posed for a moment while Nabiki felt herself absorbing the memories
of that terrifying time. Her duplicate suddenly reached behind himself
and pulled out a steaming teakettle. He poured the water over himself
and his form lost several centimeters of height, transforming back into
a duplicate of Nabiki, save for the clothes and the more muscular
build.
"That was amazing," Nabiki said softly, both a fear of the curse and
a strange fascination for it filling her. That she felt such a fascination
was disturbing to her, so she buried that thought deep.
"It has made my life more interesting," said the once-again female,
alternate version of Nabiki. "There are times that I am thankful that it
happened, but it has made my life hellish too. If it wasn't for my
fianc�, Ranma." Her voice trailed off as she looked very thoughtful.
"I guess he is rather special, in any world," said Nabiki, feeling an
odd blush cross her cheeks. She clamped down on her thoughts with
her iron will, and the feeling went away.
"Interesting memories you have of yours," said Martial-Nabiki, her
attention returning to the bubbles of scenes hanging in midair. The
first was of Nabiki's very first meeting with Ranma, of feeling that
powerful electric tingle that had overwhelmed her control for even a
short time. The Chinese-garbed Nabiki blinked and smiled. "Wow!
That was something else. Even as much as I love my Ranma-kun, I
never felt that much of a turn-on from him." Nabiki just felt very
embarrassed that her control had proven insufficient during that
incident, the Ice Queen melting for a brief time in a blast furnace of
unexpected passions. And to see such open emotions displayed on her
other self was also... odd.
"I like him, okay?" said Nabiki, watching her other self replaying
each of her meetings with Ranma. Feeling vulnerable from the desires
that Ranma had awoken in her, and not liking the feeling, Nabiki had
reinforced her cold, disdainful attitude whenever she saw Ranma. Her
teasing of him had an edge to it that she now felt very unhappy to see
in her memories.
"Sorry," said Martial-Nabiki. "I didn't mean to pry, but I can feel
how much you seem to care about him deep down. Why be so mean to
him all the time?"
"To keep him at a distance, I guess," said Nabiki, her eyes looking
outwards in a thousand-meter stare. "It is far better to be feared than
to be loved, after all." Nabiki's voice suddenly choked a bit, but she
quickly recovered. "Ranma Saotome isn't anything special. No guy
is."
"Right," said her double, disbelief plainly evident in her voice. In
an attempt to change the subject to something easier for them to deal
with than men, she said, "Hey, you wanna try some sparring with
me?" Martial-Nabiki went through a quick sequence of moves. To
her surprise when she tried them, Nabiki was able to duplicate them
exactly, and her double nodded. "I thought so."
"The fight I had," said Nabiki, suddenly remembering it. She
recalled how easy it had been to deal with the two toughs, as if they
had been moving in slow motion. "I have your skills." She went
through a kata, her body a moving a little more gracefully than it was
able to in real life, but not by much.
"It looks like it," said her doppelganger, smiling with a twinkle in
her eyes. "I worked my ass off for ten years following Uncle Genma
around Asia to learn all of this, and you take a nap for a little while
and do the same. At least my body is in better shape."
"I'm not that far behind you," muttered Nabiki, suddenly feeling a
little defensive next to her other self's accomplishments.
"No, I guess you aren't," agreed Martial-Nabiki, looking a suddenly
naked Nabiki over, noting her body's athletic musculature from her
Academy training, and the calluses on her hands and feet. "A few
months of intensive training, and your body will build up to my level.
The skills and the reflexes are over half the battle, and you already
have those from me."
Nabiki tried willing some clothes around herself, feeling strangely
unembarrassed at her unexpected nakedness, but all that appeared was
a twin of the outfit that the other Nabiki was wearing, only with a red
shirt. She shrugged her shoulders.
"Let's spar," said Nabiki, raising her hands into a guard. Her twin
smiled at her.
******************************
Nabiki rolled over in her bed and found herself staring at her clock
as she blinked her eyes open. Her dreams of the night before faded
away like smoke as she blearily read the time. *Five-twenty-eight in
the morning?* she groaned mentally as she noticed the time on her
clock, not being very much of a morning person, especially not this
early an hour in the morning. Nabiki closed her eyes and attempted to
go back to sleep for the time remaining until her alarm normally went
off, but it was to no avail. Yawning, she sat up in bed and stretched
her arms up and back.
*I guess I should get to my morning workout,* Nabiki thought with
a tired sigh. She slowly rolled out of her bed and wandered over to her
closet. She had been going through it for several minutes before it
occurred to her to wonder, *Morning workout? Since when do I do a
morning workout lately?*
Shrugging her shoulders, Nabiki continued rummaging through her
closet and found her old workout gi in the back. Seeing that it was
now easily about two sizes too small for her since the last time that she
wore it, she tossed it onto her bed and continued looking for something
else to wear. She made a mental note that she needed to buy some
new clothes that would be suitable for martial arts training. Those
Chinese-style clothes that she her martial artist counterpart had been
wearing yesterday felt pretty comfortable to wear for such activities.
Nabiki finally settled on a plain, white T-shirt and dark-blue sweat
pants, figuring that they would have to do for now.
A few minutes later, Nabiki was in the medium-sized training hall
back behind the main house. Her parents had received the house as a
wedding gift from her father's parents, and her mother's parents had
paid to construct the hall after her mother had retired from active
service in the Imperial Army. Originally, it was so that her mother
could maintain her skills in combat, but she later used it to teach her
daughters how to fight and passed on the traditions of honor. For
Nabiki, that training began when she had first begun to walk and
continued, alongside her two sisters, until the passing away of her
mother six years ago.
Nabiki had not been inside the building for the purpose of training
for several years, but it felt so right to be there now, as if she was
reclaiming an abandoned part of herself. The subtle smells of the
training hall filled her nostrils, triggering a multitude of memories of
times past. Nabiki briefly reminisced about the many long hours spent
out here under her mother's patient tutelage, a little girl training to be
a warrior like her mother before her. That training had not seemed to
matter as much after her mother had passed away, one of many things
locked away and deliberately forgotten about to avoid the pain that
they evoked, but now it did to her once again. Her mother had been so
very proud of them all, and Nabiki felt a renewed desire to become the
warrior that her mother had always told her that she was.
"Mommy is so proud of you, 'Biki-Bushi-chan," she remembered
her mother always saying with a loving smile on her face. "You keep
training like that, and someday you'll be a great warrior."
"Like you, Mommy?" Nabiki had once asked as she had paused to
wipe sweat from her brow. She had been ten years old at the time, but
the memory still lived for her as if it was yesterday if she closed her
eyes and remembered. This particular memory was one of the more
precious ones to her.
"You're going to be as good a fighter as I ever was, Nabiki-chan,"
her mother had said more seriously. "I can somehow see it out there
in your future. Someday, if you're very diligent about your training,
you'll become a superb warrior. Maybe you'll even be better than your
mother ever was."
"Really?" the younger Nabiki had asked, wide-eyed with surprise.
She had always thought that Kasumi would be the warrior in the
family, or maybe Akane. Kasumi had never let up on her regimen
after their mother had died, and she still continued to train for two
hours every day, even after her recent marriage. Akane had made
perfecting her combat skills into her own personal religion even before
that time. Nabiki, on the other hand, had simply stopped trying to
improve. Without her mother around to prove herself to, there simply
didn't seem to be much point.
"Of course, Nabiki-chan," her mother had replied, poking her in the
forehead with a fingertip and a grin on her face. "But don't think you
can take your broken-down, old mother in a fight yet. I may be older
and slower than you, but age and treachery will always win out over
youth and speed."
"Let's see about that, Mommy!" Nabiki had cried, launching herself
into an attack, a broad smile on her face as they fell to sparring.
Nabiki leaned against the door post and let herself remember other
things from the past. There were so many memories that she had not
allowed herself to recall for so many years. She was quite surprised to
suddenly realize how much all of them had changed after her mother's
death. Her father had almost completely retreated into his work, and
the cheerful man that she remembered from her childhood had evolved
almost overnight into a much colder sort, a pure professional. Nabiki
knew that she had been emulating him in order to gain approval from
her only remaining parent, an approval that she now wondered might
have carried too high a price for herself. The memories from her
counterpart gave her a rare opportunity, allowing her to re-examine
the path that she had been on and think about the choices that she had
made.
*In that other life, I am the center of attention, loved by some, hated
and feared by others, and respected by many,* Nabiki thought as her
gaze roamed around the training hall. *Here, I am known as the Iron
Bitch, or the Ice Queen of the Imperial Academy, feared and respected
at least, and a true heir to the ways of my father.* She sighed softly,
like the sound of a soul that has realized how lost it was for the first
time. *Perhaps it is not too late to change, but change to what? I am
not that other self, nor do I wish such a chaotic mess of a life, but
perhaps some of her attitudes might be worthwhile to take for my own.
It is something to think about.*
Nabiki thought that talking to Kasumi would help. Her older sister
had gone through changes almost as great as her father had. Before
their mother's death, Kasumi had been a flighty innocent, popular with
the boys and seemingly without a single thought in her head for the
future. Afterwards, Kasumi became this quiet presence in the house,
and she projected a Zen-like area of calm around her, as if a Buddha
had taken mortal female form and come to live with them. She also
began studying medicine and martial arts with equal fervor, and she
never went out on dates, to the extreme disappointment of a great
number of boys in the area.
Kasumi also began to help their previous housekeeper, a grand old
lady that was a friend of Kimiko's, keep the house clean and assist
with the cooking as well. Nabiki did not care to engage in such
activities, and Akane proved herself to be utterly hopeless at doing
such things as cooking and cleaning, much like mother had been. At
least Kasumi always seemed to enjoy doing most of the cooking, and
Nabiki was grateful to her for it. Nabiki would be the first to confess
that she missed her sister's comforting presence in the house. It just
was not the same without Kasumi humming as she went around the
house with one of her medical books in hand or cooking in the
kitchen.
*Now to see how much work I have ahead of me,* Nabiki thought
with a mild grimace. She knew that she was fairly well-muscled and
well-toned for a girl her age due to her requisite physical training class
at the Academy, but her counterpart easily had several more kilograms
of solid muscle on her and was in even better shape. To match that
high level of physical performance was going to take some time and a
lot of effort to build up to. Nabiki strongly suspected that Ranma had
also discovered the same thing about his own counterpart. Nabiki also
deduced that that was almost undoubtedly why he was continuing with
his current rigorous training schedule, despite what she had heard
about his present levels of performance at athletics. She had seen him
running through his regimen a few times, and it looked fairly brutal.
Nabiki walked to the center of the training hall and sat down on the
cold wood, the sensation triggering even more memories of happier
times in her life. It was a little chilly that early in the morning, but the
cold was invigorating to her as she began doing a light warm-up and a
regimen of stretching exercises. Nabiki spread her legs as widely as
she could and was pleased to note that she was almost as flexible as
her counterpart as she bent down, grasping her right foot with her
hands and lowering herself over that leg. She then repeated the
process with her other leg.
*Perhaps I should volunteer to participate in Ranma's training class
with Sensei Takami,* mused Nabiki as she pulled herself down lower
and lower onto her outstretched leg, stretching out the muscles as
much as she could. *I'm going to need a more intensified workout
schedule if I hope to improve myself, to become a physical equal to my
counterpart. I could also use a good sparring partner to hone my
reflexes and skills on, and I would bet money that Saotome-kun is
undoubtedly the perfect person for that.* As she pondered such
things, Nabiki then went on to stretch the rest of the major muscles in
her body, striving to maximize her flexibility. She smiled when she
finally finished stretching the last area and stood up slowly.
As she stood there for a few moments, Nabiki briefly wondered
about what Ranma's other life was like, the life where he had received
his new martial arts skills from, and what the Nabiki of that world was
like. *In my own counterpart's life, I am the best martial artist in all
of Nerima,* she thought with a measure of borrowed pride. *There is
a Ranma there who is, at best, a second-stringer in fighting capability
next to my own counterpart. I wonder how good a fighter I am in the
world where the counterpart dwells that he received his skills from? Is
that Ranma also trained in the Anything-Goes style?* Nabiki made a
mental note to ask him these questions, along with a score of other
questions that she had for the young scientist.
Nabiki settled herself into a stance and began running through a
kata, letting her body slowly move through the half-familiar motions.
She grimaced slightly as she felt her body moving at significantly less
than perfect form and focused herself on eliminating as many of the
imperfections as she could. Nabiki felt very rusty at the activities, but
that didn't surprise her very much when she paused to think about it.
The skills from her counterpart would take time to absorb, assuming
that they were as permanent a part of herself as she thought they might
now be. She pushed herself even harder, trying to recapture that
graceful fluidity of motion that she had experienced yesterday. A light
sheen of sweat began to accumulate on her body, dampening her white
T-shirt despite the cool morning air.
*This is so incredible,* Nabiki thought as she continued pushing
herself harder and harder, increasing her speed as much as she could.
Strangely, the less she thought about the motions and just let herself
move as her body would, the better she did at them. She purposely let
her mind drift away to other things as her body continued moving
through the regimen that she had set herself for this morning. As she
did so, her body's posture slowly changed to a near-match of the other
Nabiki, and her movements increased in grace and speed. She closed
her eyes and embraced the freedom.
After about half an hour of that, Nabiki then went over to the heavy
leather bag, hanging from a thick chain on one side of the room. It
was one of a pair in the room, both somewhat worn from the efforts of
her sisters during their own training over the years. She settled herself
in front of it for a moment.
"Hiyah!" Nabiki suddenly cried, driving her fist into the thick black
leather. It responded by jerking back slightly from the impact with a
rattling sound from its heavy chain, and she immediately launched
another blow into it with her opposing fist. She repeated this back and
forth, punching the heavy bag a hundred times with each fist, feeling
the impact on her knuckles. As she worked through a second set of
punches with each hand, an almost pleasant ache slowly built up in
her shoulders and arms, and there was something rather satisfying
about landing blows into the bag.
When Nabiki was done with her last punch, she began working on
her kicks next. Her leg flashed up to solidly strike the bag, knocking it
back on its chain, and she felt the shock of impact all the way to her
hips. Again and again, she landed kicks into the bag, driving it back
again and again. The efforts brought a heavy sweat to her brow, and
her T-shirt now clung to her body. She was almost done with her
second set of a hundred kicks when she heard a voice speak up behind
her.
"What are you doing out here, Nabiki?" asked Akane's voice from
behind her. Nabiki paused and turned around, seeing her little sister
standing in the doorway of the training hall in a well-worn, white gi.
"I thought I heard someone out here, but I never expected it to be you."
"Just working out a bit before getting ready to conquer the new day,
little sister," said Nabiki with a smile, as she panted a little. "I woke
up early, and I felt inspired to see how much I could remember from
the training that Mom gave us." The lie came quite easily to her
tongue, but they always had. Akane just stared at Nabiki in slight
confusion.
"Well, after I've warmed myself up, are you interested in doing
some sparring?" Akane asked, suddenly smiling. "With Kasumi gone,
I miss having someone around to practice with. Do you think you
might take up your old level of training again?"
Nabiki debated the matter in her thoughts. *I wonder if I could take
my little sister in a sparring match now?* She felt a sudden and rather
unexpected urge to try and nodded. Akane looked pleased.
"That's great!" Akane said, beaming even brighter. "With my help,
I'm sure that you'll get to be a great fighter. Not that I mind helping
you out as a bodyguard, I mean."
"Let me know when you're ready," said Nabiki, turning her back on
Akane before beginning to kick the bag once more. She put more
effort into each kick, feeling a soft burning building up slowly in the
muscles in her legs.
A short time later, Akane called out that she was ready. Nabiki
turned around with a smile, breathing hard and deeply to replenish her
strength quickly as she began walking over. She saw Akane standing
in the middle of the mat, moving slightly from side to side. By the
time that Nabiki reached the middle of the mat, her breathing had
calmed almost back to normal. Her mother had always commented
that Nabiki always seemed to recover the fastest of the three sisters
from the strenuous efforts of training. She was proud to see that her
abilities at recuperation remained undiminished.
"Ready when you are, little sister," Nabiki said, settling herself into
a combat stance.
Akane decided to go easy on Nabiki, at least at first. She smiled
when her sister blocked the first few strikes with seeming ease. *I
guess Nabiki hasn't been letting up on her training as much as I might
have thought. Still, I should have gotten at least one punch through by
now.* Akane continued to attack, and Nabiki continued to block or
evade every punch or kick. Her constantly missing was beginning to
irritate the youngest Tendou.
*Either Akane is going really easy on me, or I'm much better now
after that experience in Ranma's lab than I thought I was,* noted
Nabiki with mild pleasure as she flowed around all of Akane's efforts
to strike her. The recent experience of her fight with Akio and Kena
last evening notwithstanding, Nabiki had not been expecting to be
doing quite this well against her younger sister. So far she had simply
been defending and was pleased to see that Akane was starting to look
frustrated at her inability to connect. Nabiki decided to up the ante a
little bit and lashed out with a quick punch of her own.
*Why isn't Nabiki fighting back?* Akane wondered, annoyed. *I've
been leaving a few openings in my defenses on purpose that she could
have exploited by now. Why doesn't she try and hit me?* Nabiki's
sudden punch burst through Akane's guard a mere moment later and
impacted squarely into her face. Akane blinked at the strike, more
surprised than really hurt. She hadn't even seen it coming. *Wow!
Nabiki is even faster than I thought she was.* Akane increased the
tempo of their match, her natural aggressiveness emerging.
"Nice punch, Nabiki," said Akane with a wolfish smile on her face.
"I guess you might be some competition for me, after all. All right,
this time for real!" She lashed out with a complex combination of
kicks and punches that had only ever failed to take an opponent down
once, that opponent being Ranma Saotome.
"Whatever you say, little sister," said Nabiki with a slight smirk on
her face, a note of smug mockery in her voice. She wove through all
of Akane's powerful strikes like smoke, some of the blows failing to
connect by mere millimeters. "I guess I'm better than you expected,
ne?" Nabiki blocked one of Akane's hands, locked a quick hold onto
the extended limb, and then flipped her.
"Yeek!" screeched Akane in surprise, landing flat on her back onto
the mat in the training hall with a dull thud. Internally she cursed
herself for letting Nabiki get the better of her so easily and sprang back
to her feet. An intense fury filled her as Akane attacked Nabiki with
her full strength, but she only managed to shatter a fist-sized hole into
one of the walls of the training hall, instead of laying Nabiki out on
the mat, unconscious. A light blow suddenly hit Akane squarely on
the back of her neck a moment later, what would have been a knockout
or even killing blow if it had landed with more force, and she blinked
in surprise.
Akane pulled her fist from the hole in the wall and turned around,
looking at Nabiki in shock. Her older sister stood there in an almost
casual stance, but still ready for further combat, a thoughtful look on
her face. Akane shook wooden shards from her hand, her anger at
Nabiki diminishing a bit due to sheer surprise. Her older sister had
been standing right in front of her, and then she suddenly wasn't.
"How'd you do that?" asked Akane with a puzzled look, her surprise
at her sister's combat abilities briefly overcoming her anger. "I hardly
even saw you move. Wherever did you learn to fight like that?"
"It's... uhh... a secret," said Nabiki, feeling a strange urge to keep
the knowledge of Ranma's invention to herself. "I'll tell you about it
someday though, okay?" Nabiki smiled, feeling not quite like herself
at that moment.
"Okay," said Akane, her sudden anger at Nabiki so easily evading
her already fading, but she still felt suspicious. "You must have found
a new teacher on the side, it looks like. It sure wasn't anything like the
stuff that Mom ever taught us, or even what the Academy makes us
learn. So what was it?"
"It's a style of Kempo," answered Nabiki. "I really shouldn't say
anything more about it. Okay?"
"Sure, Nabiki," said Akane. "Just promise me that you'll teach me
someday." She attempted to duplicate one of the blocks that Nabiki
had used during the fight. "It looked like a powerful style." Nabiki
simply nodded, feeling a strangeness to her thoughts.
*Oh yes, Akane,* Nabiki thought while she kept nodding. *It's
quite a powerful style. One that I've never even heard mention of
before my experience yesterday, and now I know it, and I suspect that
Ranma does too. How very... strange.*
******************************
At about the same time in the Kunou household, Kodachi finished
pummeling the heavy leather bag in the mansion's training hall. The
muscles in her limbs ached slightly from the intensive efforts that she
had given, but she knew from experience that her body would recover
very quickly. In her original life, she had not pushed herself to the
true limits to which she was capable of. In her present life, she kept
pushing what she thought of as her limits further and further, and her
body kept improving in strength and speed.
Kodachi smiled as she went through a brief kata, enjoying the
supple strength of her physique. Many years of intensive gymnastics
and dance training had given her counterpart a body that was ideal for
performing as a martial artist. Lithely muscular, as fast and graceful
as a cat, and with a well-proportioned female form overlaying it all,
Kodachi felt quite confident that she would be able to overcome any
difficulties in her pursuit of Ranma.
*Ahh, Ranma,* Kodachi thought with a pleasant sigh. *Once I
deal with that annoying Akane Tendou today, then you and I can
explore a romance to equal anything in literature. I will prove the
strength of my love for you by utterly defeating that little, brutish thug
in your name.* Her right fist snapped out with near-lethal power, the
sleek muscles in her forearms standing out in base relief. Kodachi
whirled through a quick sequence of strikes and blocks, every
movement done with precision.
When she was done, Kodachi picked up her towel and dabbed the
sweat from her brow. Her chest heaved a bit from her deep breathing,
as her lungs quickly rebuilt her strength after her efforts. *I have to
confess that I will sort of miss fighting with Asuka though,* thought
Kodachi as she padded across the floor in her bare feet. *There really
isn't anything quite like dealing with a near-equal opponent on a
regular basis to keep the reflexes sharp. Maybe I can talk Ranma into
sparring with me.* The thought sent a surprisingly pleasant quiver
through her body, a brief fantasy of yielding herself to a victorious
Ranma like the heroine of a romance manga running through her
mind.
Kodachi looked at her brother as she passed him, a frown crossing
her face at his earlier refusal to spar with her. She had politely asked
him if he had cared to, after completing her warm-up and stretching,
but he had demurred. It was the only thing that she could think of to
prove her strength to him, and her ability to take care of herself. *I
will simply try again tomorrow,* she decided. An impish, little smile
appeared on her lips. *Perhaps if I insult him a bit next time.*
Tatewaki watched his sister leave the room out of the corner of his
eye, the remainder of his attention on practicing his form. *Today is
the day that you fall before me, Ranma Saotome. My gentle and
innocent sister is not for the crude hands of the likes of you, nor shall
the sweet and virtuous Akane Tendou be thine.* A brief fantasy of a
maidenly Akane dressed in traditional garb, greeting him with a
kowtow as he returned home, filled his mind. The image gave him
new determination to visit doom upon Ranma Saotome following
classes today.
*Perhaps I should consider Father's advice and transfer to the
Imperial Academy,* thought Kunou, slashing through the air with his
weapon. *T'would bring me closer to the fair Akane, and my guarding
hand would be ever-present to defend my sister from the grasping and
lecherous Ranma Saotome. One such as he is entirely unsuited to
consort with my fair sister. T'would be a noble sacrifice, but necessary
I think.*
Kunou slashed through a wooden target with his bokken, and the
top half fell to the side with a crash, sheered clean through as if by a
razor-sharp blade. *Count the hours you have remaining, Ranma
Saotome, before you face my righteous wrath. My sweet sister and the
innocent Akane Tendou must be defended from thy lustful desires.*
A short time later, Kodachi fussed with her bow as she observed
herself in the full-length mirror in her room. This was to be her first
day attending the Imperial Academy, and she wanted everything to be
perfect. She felt a bit out of sorts wearing the standard-make, wool
and linen uniform for an Imperial Academy Science cadet, not being
able to obtain any tailored ones suitable for one of her refined breeding
on such short notice. So, for a day or two, she would simply have to
forego finer fabrics and tolerate these more plebian ones. As she
finished adjusting her bow, she found herself looking forward to
dressing Ranma in silks and satins as well, as she felt he deserved.
Finally satisfied with her appearance, Kodachi blew a seductive kiss
at her reflection. She practically skipped down the stairs, buoyed up
by the happiness filling her heart. She quickly raced through eating
her breakfast, more than a little impatient to be off. Her father had left
the house early to attend a meeting with some of his fellow Lords,
leaving her mother to preside over the breakfast table.
"You seem most eager to see your new lover, Dachi-chan," said her
mother in a teasing tone of voice. Kunou promptly snapped the set of
chopsticks in his hand in half in mid-bite. Kodachi's face blushed
bright red across her cheeks.
"Mother," said Kodachi in a put upon tone of voice, a touch of
whining mixed in. "I have told you that it is nothing like that. I am
simply eager to learn what the Imperial Academy has to teach. Ranma
Saotome is most certainly _not_ my lover." She began eating what
was left of her breakfast more daintily. *Although he would indeed be
most welcome to become so,* Kodachi brazenly thought, embracing
an impulse that brought another maidenly blush to her cheeks.
Tatewaki grumbled under his breath, more and more convinced that
the dramatic changes in his sister were due to the morally corrupting
influences of Ranma. His thoughts were filled with a simmering anger
against the young scientist. *When we finally meet, Ranma Saotome,
you will face the unleashed fury of Tatewaki Kunou, he who is the
quintessentially supreme duelist of this modern generation. At that
meeting between us, only one shall remain standing, and it shall not
be thee, Ranma Saotome.* He began gobbling down the remainder of
his breakfast as fast as propriety allowed.
After breakfast was over, their mother saw them off at the front
door, while servants handed them their school supplies. Kunou gave
his mother a brief kiss on the cheek, part of his morning routine since
he was five years old and first left home for school. Kodachi gave her
mother a gentle kiss on the opposing cheek a moment later. Their last
sight of their mother was of her in her usual position, a quiet smile of
farewell on her lips.
The ride in the limousine was quiet. When the car stopped in front
of the Imperial Academy, Kodachi departed from her brother with a
brusque nod. He returned the nod, his hands resting lightly on the hilt
of his bokken as its point sat on the floor of the vehicle. Kodachi
shaded her eyes with her hand as she emerged from the dimly-lit
interior into the morning light.
Back inside the limousine, Kunou pondered his course of action for
the day. The temptation to smite Ranma Saotome as soon as possible
weighed heavily upon him, but he decided to proceed with his initial
plan of action. He tapped on the window and motioned the driver to
continue on.
Kodachi took in a deep lungful of the fresh, morning air and let it
out with a pleasant sigh. She was rather early, so she occupied herself
with watching her fellow cadets arriving as she waited at the gate for
Ranma to make his appearance. Several groups of cadets eyed her
curiously, obviously noting that she was new, but she ignored them.
Her eyes waited for only one young man.
******************************
Ranma strolled along, grateful that he had managed to get out of the
house this morning without having to hear his mother give yet another
lecture about the joys of an arranged marriage. It was a sunny day, the
birds were singing in the trees, and he felt glad to be alive. *Life just
can't get any better than this.*
"You have an interesting fate clinging to you, boy," said a voice
from behind him, startling him from his good mood. Ranma stopped
and turned around, blinking in surprise when he saw a small figure
dressed in the robes of a wandering Buddhist monk, a straw hat hiding
the face, and a tall staff in one hand. The wooden staff was metal-
shod at both ends and was topped by three jingling rings of brass
attached to a circle of metal at the upright end.
"What?" asked Ranma, a little irritated at the unexpected event.
"Did you say something to me, old man?"
"I said that you have an interesting fate clinging to your aura, boy,"
said the wizened voice. The hat tipped back, and an ugly little gnome
of a monk gazed up at him. "It has been some time since I have seen
its like. A strange and possibly dark destiny awaits you, young one."
The old man's voice had dropped into spooky tones at the last.
"Who the hell are you, old man?" asked Ranma, not only irritated at
the unexpected delay in his morning routine, but also now more than a
little weirded out to be accosted like this by the strange, old man.
"I am Cherry," said the ugly, little, wizened figure. "Just a simple,
wandering monk, and a student of arcane lore. By the way, do you
have any extra food on you, by chance?" When Ranma did not reply,
he shrugged then pointed at Ranma with the head of his staff, the
rings jingling slightly. "Mark my words, boy. Your destiny calls to
you, and I am but a humble harbinger of its approach. Powerful and
strange forces swirl about your life, and a vast storm looms on the
horizon of things. I can clearly see that you have been chosen for a
great task. It is Fate." Ranma could actually hear the capitalization of
the final word from the manner in which the old man spoke it.
"What the hell are you babbling about, you old geezer?!" snapped
Ranma, finally breaking the brief spell of wonder that the mysterious,
old man had cast over him. He turned his back on Cherry and started
to walk away. "I don't have time to listen to such mystical nonsense."
"Then you are the fool, boy of science," remarked Cherry. "I will
take my leave of you until you finally come to your senses... Ranma
Saotome." The little gnome of a monk wandered into the gloom of a
nearby alleyway while Ranma blinked in surprise that Cherry had
known his name. The gentle ringing of the monk's staff receded into
the alleyway.
"Hey!" shouted Ranma, turning back around and taking two steps to
bring him to the mouth of the alleyway. He goggled in surprise, for
the old man was gone, leaving behind only the fading echoes of the
jingling rings on his staff. *Now where the hell did that old man go?*
wondered Ranma for several moments. *Was he some sort of master
ninja or something? He couldn't possibly have managed to clear the
distance to the other end of the alley. He was only out of my sight for
a second or two. And how the hell did he know my name? Argghhh!
I don't have time for this right now!*
Ranma decided to leave off from exploring his questions for another
time, since he didn't want to be late for classes this morning. The
word was that they were getting a new substitute instructor for
homeroom, as a temporary replacement for Sensei Tokimo while he
went on a long sabbatical. *I hope they found someone with a little
more personality than that dried up old prune, Tokimo.*
The remaining time spent walking to the Academy grounds were
devoid of any further strange occurrences, and Ranma was glad. He
had experienced too many of such things over the last few days. *My
life used to be so quiet,* he thought with a sigh. *Hopefully after I get
Akane Tendou over her little fixation with me, then my life can return
to normal. A little excitement in my life is one thing, but this is
getting to be ridiculous.*
******************************
Akane and Nabiki walked along, enjoying the morning. Each girl
wandered in her own thoughts. Nabiki analyzed the abilities that she
had gained overnight and wondered at how great she felt after the
heavy morning workout. Akane fantasized about her future life at
Ranma Saotome's side as his wife, lover, and best friend.
Akane was completely convinced now that she was obviously the
best choice for Ranma's wife, and she looked forward to a long life
fighting at his side, in what she was sure would be a martial arts filled,
romantic adventure like some of her favorite television programs. A
great many of her imagined scenes were taken from one of her most
favorite anime series, "Young Warriors." It was a story about a pair of
highly-skilled, teenaged martial artists, a boy and a girl, and their
adventures around the world fighting against many new and recurring
foes.
Briefly breaking out of her fantasy, Akane also very much looked
forward to brutally stomping on her only perceived rival for Ranma's
affections, Kodachi Kunou. *Once I take care of that pushy little
debutante bitch, then nothing further will stand between me and my
destiny with Ranma,* thought Akane, feeling a wave of happiness fill
her. She closed her right hand into a tight fist and smacked it into the
open palm of her other hand. *I'll have to talk with Daddy about
arranging a marriage meeting with the Saotome's, but that shouldn't be
a problem. Then Ranma will officially be all mine. I can hardly
wait.*
*Akane looks like she's thinking about Ranma again,* noted Nabiki
in her own thoughts, observing the starry-eyed gaze in her little sister's
eyes. Since Ranma's battle with Akane, it had become a very common
occurrence. In addition, every now and then this morning Akane's
visage would darken, and she would mutter dire imprecations about
Kodachi Kunou as she clenched her right hand into a fist and released
it. It did not bode well for the young aristocrat.
*I may have a fight on my hands after all, once I finally get myself
engaged to Ranma,* thought Nabiki with mild concern. *Akane won't
just roll over and play dead after I do. And what is Kodachi Kunou
doing showing up like this? How did she suddenly develop an interest
in Ranma? She never had any interest in him in that other world, and
yet here Kunou claimed that Ranma was having some sort of sordid
relationship with his sister. It looks like I'm going to have to start
taking steps to deal with any more unexpected surprises appearing on
the playing field. The absolute last thing that I need is to have to
contend with any more complications in my pursuit of Ranma.* She
paused for a moment, her hand clenching into a fist. *Still, anything
worth having is worth fighting for, so let them all come, if they dare.*
They continued walking, reaching the front gate to the Academy a
few minutes later. Akane eyed the new addition to the campus cadet
population with extreme distaste, an expression that was coolly
returned by Kodachi Kunou. Nabiki looked at Kodachi with moderate
interest, having heard Akane ranting a little bit over dinner about the
girl who was plotting to steal "her" Ranma away from her, now that
she had finally found the man that she had waited so long for.
*Still, while those two keep each other occupied, I can take care of
everything needed to win Ranma for myself,* thought Nabiki with a
smug look briefly coming over her face. *Face it, girls. Next to me,
the two of you are hopelessly outmatched. However, I do want to see
everyone happy if I can, and eliminating an enemy by taking away
their reason to hate you is always good strategy. Akane wants a
warrior, and Kunou may be insufficient in ability to defeat her. I
wonder if there's a certain Ryouga Hibiki free in this world to pick up
some of the slack?* While she mused on this, Nabiki wandered over
to a small cluster of her usual cronies, several plans for dealing with
all of these new developments tumbling through her mind.
Akane broke away from Nabiki's side and approached the young
noblewoman at a measured pace. She stopped a short distance away
from Kodachi, and they sized each other up. Akane slowly closed her
right hand into a fist and reopened it, her breathing deepening
slightly.
"Tendou," acknowledged Kodachi, nodding her head slightly, her
voice almost resonating with disdain.
"Kodachi," replied Akane coldly. "I didn't think that you'd have the
guts to show up, after the warning I gave you yesterday. Ranma isn't
around to save you from getting my fist planted into your face in the
next few moments."
"You really are a crude and unpleasant sort, aren't you, Akane
Tendou?" asked Kodachi in a conversational tone of voice. "How a
brutish barbarian like you could possibly think that such primitive
behaviors would attract a peaceful and refined soul like Saotome-kun's
is quite beyond me. Still, if you're looking for a fight with me, then
I'm more than willing to teach you some manners. I would even go so
far as to say that I would consider it a distinct pleasure."
"Why, you arrogant..." snarled Akane, dropping her bookbag. She
sprang at Kodachi with fire in her eyes, grabbing the other girl firmly
by the collar of her uniform with her left hand and pinning her against
the wall just inside the gate. Kodachi willingly went along with the
motion, a faint ghost of a smile briefly appearing on her lips. The
cadets began jostling each other for position, hoping to get a good
view of the upcoming action.
Nabiki noticed the commotion and began accepting bets, quickly
instructing her assistants to do the same. She set the odds to favor
Akane slightly, laying out quick spreads as to duration of fight and a
few other betting options. *Ranma is sure to see them fighting over
him when he arrives,* thought Nabiki as she began scribbling down
receipts while fistfuls of money were shoved at her. *How he reacts to
that will be quite educational. I'll just act as my usual self for now.
Wouldn't want to give away the new Nabiki too soon, after all, and
surprise is always a valuable tactical advantage in any situation.*
"Let go of me, Tendou," said Kodachi in very icy tones. Her school
bag had been kicked to one side during Akane's sudden rush. Kodachi
wrapped her right hand around Akane's wrist as the two girls locked
eyes in a battle of wills. Akane increased the pressure of her forearm
against Kodachi's shoulder.
"In a moment you're going to learn that you shouldn't mess with me,
you stuck-up bitch," said Akane angrily. She slowly curled her right
hand into a tight fist as she drew it back and cocked it. The crowd
watched in breathless anticipation but kept a good distance away from
the pair. A fight involving Akane could move around quite quickly.
"Oh?" asked Kodachi pleasantly, suddenly driving her knee up into
Akane's stomach and knocking the other girl away. "Why is that,
Tendou?"
Akane gasped for air, taken by surprise by the hit. The crowd made
some appreciative noises at the unexpected tactic, and even more
money flowed into bets on Kodachi to win. Akane's eyes narrowed in
fury, and a red haze seemed to fall over her vision. *That's what I get
for underestimating the little debutante bitch,* she thought darkly.
*But no one makes me look like a fool. No one.*
Seeing the move, Nabiki decided to modify the odds to even.
Akane launched into a furious and powerful assault against
Kodachi, but her punches and kicks were turned aside by deft blocks
and parries time and again. To counter this, Akane became even more
fanciful in her strikes and dealing out even greater power in each of
them, spinning kicks around her body to add more force to them as she
leaped into the air. Against previous opponents this had proven to be
a devastating tactic, delivering bone-crushing impacts against the
upper body and face. Against Kodachi it was much less effective, and
Akane's kicks failed to connect as the young noblewoman ducked and
whirled around her. The air was filled with the sounds of grunted
effort on the part of both girls and the muttered comments and
occasional loud cheers from the crowd.
Kodachi countered the assault with a level of skill that was Akane's
equal. Where Akane had the definite edge in raw power, Kodachi
made up for it in grace and speed. One of her punches cracked across
Akane's cheek, but she shrugged it off. To her surprise, Kodachi
found herself enjoying the challenge of the fight, and the two girls
pushed each other to the limits of their abilities as they contended
against each other.
Yohko Mano watched the fight with professional interest from her
guardian position next to Nabiki, as she had often picked up a few
pointers to add to her own techniques by watching Akane's skill in
action during previous fights. A slick move could sometimes prove to
be the only thing standing between life and death for a Devil Hunter.
Inside, she cheered her friend Akane, only showing it outside with a
faint grin on her face as she tried to maintain a professional demeanor.
Yohko noticed Kyousuke in the crowd watching the fight, standing
next to Gosunkugi. Other cadets were giving the two PsiDiv cadets a
very wide berth without looking as if they were trying to do so. Yohko
sighed, briefly forgetting her present irritation with her boyfriend over
his staring at that Ayukawa girl. Yohko knew how much Kyousuke
wanted to be accepted as just another Security cadet, but the small pin
on his collar seemed as if it would set him forever apart from regular
humans. *Perhaps it's time for me to forgive him,* Yohko thought,
her attention briefly drawn from the fight.
*Akane-chan,* thought Gosunkugi with a sigh, glorying in the
sight of the supple power of each movement of his love goddess. He
swiftly pulled out a mini-camera from a front pocket and began
snapping pictures, a feat that only his sempai standing next to him
noticed. *She is so graceful and strong. Oh Akane, your every
movement is like a symphony to me.*
*What are you doing, Hikaru?* asked Kyousuke mentally, directing
his thoughts to his fellow esper.
*My apologies, sempai,* thought Gosunkugi with a faint coloring of
embarrassment. *I just love her so. Every movement of her body is so
graceful and powerful. There is just something special about a woman
who can move like that.*
*Yes, there is,* thought Kyousuke in reply, a brief memory of some
of his time spent with Yohko Mano accompanying it. *Any luck in
your attempts at courting her?*
*She doesn't even know that I'm alive, sempai,* thought Gosunkugi
with a ringing note of misery. *And now with Ranma Saotome in the
picture, I don't know what to do.* He had confirmed the rumors that
he had been hearing, and a depression had filled him. He consoled
himself by snapping another couple of photos of Akane in action.
*Why don't you talk to her?* thought Kyousuke in exasperation.
*At least let her know that you're interested. You don't see me going
about acting too afraid to talk to a girl, do you?* His thought sending
was colored with pride.
*Not even Ayukawa-san?* teased Gosunkugi, briefly grinning at his
sempai's sudden frown. *She has been in your thoughts a great deal
the last few days. Are you thinking of leaving Mano-sempai?*
*My private life is really none of your concern, Hikaru,* thought
Kyousuke stiffly, walling off his deeper memories. *I suppose I could
say much the same thing about you and that young Ghost Sweeper girl
studying at the Institute. What was her name again?*
*All right, sempai, you've made your point,* grumbled Gosunkugi,
ignoring the question and turning his attention back to Akane and
Kodachi's fight. Only a few seconds had gone by during the mental
conversation.
Kodachi found herself operating on the defensive, letting herself
take Akane's measure, or at least that was the initial plan. She kept
trying to get some distance between her and Akane to let her use her
powerful kicks, but the other girl was relentless. Her mistake was in
using the same strategies that she had always used against Asuka, and
she was not adjusting quickly enough to the tactics of a new opponent.
Kodachi missed a block, and Akane's fist streaked in to slam low and
hard into Kodachi's chest, right underneath her breasts. The pain
from her lower ribs was intense, and Kodachi was surprised once
again at the sheer strength behind Akane's fist. She staggered back,
slightly stunned, and Akane quickly followed up with a smashing
uppercut across her jaw. Flecks of blood spattered against the wall
behind her back, shortly before Kodachi collapsed against it, her head
spinning.
Akane stood back a pace, actually quite surprised that Kodachi had
gone down so quickly from only a couple of strikes. The young
noblewoman wasn't proving to be as much of a challenge to her as she
had vaguely hoped, and it was ending far too quickly for her tastes.
Akane rubbed a bruise on her cheek from one of Kodachi's fists with
the back of her hand, tasting a little blood in her mouth from a cut
inside her cheek. It was one of several minor injuries that she had
received on her face and body from the young noblewoman. Seeing
that Kodachi wasn't springing back to the attack quickly enough to suit
her, Akane started to shout at the other girl.
"Come on!" yelled Akane tauntingly, gesturing with her hands
briefly before returning her fists into a ready position in front of her
body. "Get up, you weakling! I still have quite a few things to teach
you!" She circled around Kodachi warily, holding down her desires to
pummel the aristocrat while she was down through sheer force of will.
Akane had done it before to other challengers, driving her fists into
the bodies of unresisting opponents after she had knocked them down,
but it never offered her the same intense sense of satisfaction that
going toe to toe with a strong foe who could defend themselves did.
Kodachi caught her breath while she leaned against the wall and
grimaced, shaking her head slightly to clear it. Akane's strength was
great, and her blows were powerful. Still, Kodachi was now certain
that she was slightly faster, and she remained confident that her skills
would yet prevail, despite the blood that she now tasted in her mouth.
*This has gotten too far out of hand,* she thought dazedly, while she
regained her breath. *I can't afford to waste any more time with this
foolish girl. I'm sure that Saotome-kun will thank me for putting this
barbarian savage down for the full count.* Kodachi gathered herself,
slowly pulling herself up the wall.
"Ready for more? Good!" said Akane, a smile appearing on her
face. The crowd cheered for Kodachi in a few locations as they
watched the aristocrat pull herself back up to her full height. Akane
came rushing in with a very straightforward attack, more one of raw
power than skill. She wasn't expecting to see any more fight left in
Kodachi, so Akane's defenses were weaker while she went into her all-
out offensive.
That was all the opening that Kodachi needed. Her left foot
exploded up from the ground in a powerful side kick that drove hard
into Akane's stomach. Quickly dropping her foot, Kodachi used it as a
pivot for a reverse spin kick that whirled her body about, focusing all
of the energy from her torquing hips into her swiftly-uprising leg. The
crowd gasped as her right heel slammed across Akane's face with a
bone-crunching sound of impact, spinning the other girl around in a
dazed condition. However, a sudden blurring in Kodachi's vision
when she dropped her foot back to the ground prevented her from
finishing Akane off at that moment while she was stunned and off
balance.
Nabiki actually stopped what she was doing at that moment to
watch the unexpected turnaround in the fight. She had not been
expecting Kodachi to give her little sister such a challenge, and for
several long seconds there were no motions from either fighter. *This
Kodachi is far more of a threat than she initially appeared to be, if she
can stand up against Akane as well as she has,* noted Nabiki, filing
away the information in her mind. There were no clever tricks being
used by this version of Kodachi, no wielding of ribbons or other odd
weapons of rhythmic gymnastics to fight with. No, this version of
Kodachi Kunou was simply a well-trained unarmed combatant, to an
extraordinarily high caliber of skill. *This looks to be more and more
interesting. I do so love a challenge.* Nabiki smiled.
Gosunkugi started forward to help Akane when a hand came down
on his shoulder. Kyousuke shook his head when the younger boy
looked back at him. *Do you really think that Akane would want help
in a fight?* he thought at Gosunkugi. *Win or lose, it must be by her
own hand. Do not interfere with the two Mundanes, my young friend.
You will not earn Akane's appreciation if you do. She is a girl of
intense pride.*
Gosunkugi nodded, but his thoughts were dark as he stared at the
ponytail-haired girl who had struck his love goddess so brutally. *You
have made a life-long enemy this day, Kodachi Kunou,* the young
esper thought fiercely. *I will not forget your actions against my
Akane-chan. Ever.*
Amazingly, to those in the crowd who had witnessed both kicks
landing solidly into her body and face, Akane took both powerful
strikes and was still managing to remain on her feet. Her mouth
slowly leaked blood from a split lip, and it felt like one of her molars
had come loose during the impact of Kodachi's second kick. Akane
probed the inside of her mouth with her tongue for a moment to
confirm it, and then she grinned savagely. Other than against Nabiki
and Ranma, she hadn't had this much of a challenge in a long time. It
was an enjoyable experience to find yet another opponent that she
could cut loose on.
*I don't believe this,* thought Kodachi with annoyance as Akane
came back up into a ready stance after several moments. *That kick
would have floored some of the best Arena fighters. This Tendou girl
must be part cockroach or something.* However, Kodachi felt an
unexpected quiver of savage joy run up and down her body as Akane
smiled a bloody smile at her in the bright morning light. All of her
fights with Asuka had not forced Kodachi to reach quite so deeply into
herself as this fight had required, and she had to admit that she was
strangely grateful to find such a worthy opponent. *After all, the
greater the challenge, the sweeter the victory.*
Kodachi raised her hands back up into a guarding position again, a
smile that was eerily like Akane's own on her face. The two girls
circled each other again, both far more wary of the other's capabilities
than when the fight had begun. Each of them now realized that they
faced an opponent who was roughly their equal.
"Was that your best shot, debutante?" asked Akane contemptuously.
Kodachi's eyes glinted angrily, but she didn't feel like wasting any
of her breath on replying. Her jaw hurt a great deal, and she knew
that she was going to have some colorful bruises all over her body after
this was over. Kodachi didn't feel that any of her bones were broken,
and she suspected that Akane's damages were equally superficial. She
did notice that Akane was moving slower, but Kodachi was surprised
that the other girl was still able to move at all. Putting the Tendou girl
down was not proving to be as easy for her as she had first thought.
"Come on, princess," Akane coaxed, gesturing for Kodachi to close
with her. Akane spit out some more blood, the pain of her injuries
was dulled through the mask of her hatred for the other girl. However,
now mixed in with that hatred was a grudging respect for a worthy
opponent. She circled around Kodachi, eyeing the aristocrat for any
weaknesses in her defenses, while her body recovered its strength.
Akane felt a savage joy in her soul. Fighting always made her feel
truly alive, and she now anticipated the day more than ever before
when she faced Ranma like this in combat once again.
*She took a couple of my best kicks and didn't fall,* noted Kodachi
with clinical detachment, taking a few moments to study Akane as she
searched for any weaknesses in her defenses. *This Tendou girl's skill
at fighting is impressive. Far better than I anticipated from her. She
is even tougher than she looks.*
Akane quickly tired of waiting for Kodachi to make a move, and she
suddenly came in with a series of punches, elbow strikes, and kicks.
Kodachi had no choice but to try and see if she could slip any blows
past Akane's defenses while doing her best to block and dodge the new
assault. However, for every punch that she threw, Akane returned one
in exchange. They moved across the courtyard in a dazzling display of
martial arts skill.
Asuka Saginomiya watched the combat from a nearby tree with
envy filling her soul as she witnessed her sworn enemy, Kodachi,
fighting with Akane, her new rival for the heart of Tatewaki Kunou.
Not that she ever actually considered Akane to be a true rival, only an
annoyance in her life that she would soon deal with. Asuka had not
realized before how skilled Kodachi truly was, and it rankled her that
the Kunou girl had been holding back her true ability, as if she, the
White Lily of Blackhall Academy, had not been not worthy of its full
measure. Asuka made a mental note to hire the finest teachers that
she could find, so that she could improve her skills sufficiently to best
Kodachi Kunou once and for all.
Next to Asuka perched her right hand woman, Ayako Mitsui, easily
balancing on the tree branch on the balls of her feet. Asuka looked
over to see that Ayako was not following her instructions but was
instead watching someone else in the crowd. She followed the line of
Ayako's vision to see what her friend and sparring partner was looking
at, and she was surprised to see an identical twin of Ayako standing
amidst the crowd, next to the sister of Akane Tendou.
"Yohko," murmured Ayako, venom filling the single word as she
softly and slowly spat it from her lips. She noticed Asuka looking at
her and gave a quick bow of her head to her mistress in apology. "I'm
sorry, Milady. It is an old family score that I must deal with at a later
time. Please forgive me for my inattention."
"It is nothing, Mitsui-san," said Asuka calmly. "In fact, it gives me
an excellent idea for a future task for you."
"As always, Milady, my honor is to serve you," said Ayako humbly.
"Through me as your personal ninja, the Mitsui Clan is ever at your
disposal. Name the task, and it shall be done."
"Soon, Mitsui-san, soon," breathed Asuka softly. "For now, I am
content to watch the beating that Kodachi is taking from that savage,
little Tendou girl. You don't know how pleasant it is to see that bitch
sister of Kunou's receiving such punishment. I only wish it was myself
doing it." Asuka's eyes glittered in the morning sunlight streaming
down through the tree branches.
Down below, Kodachi's head rocked back from another one of
Akane's uppercuts, and she responded with a quick footsweep that
caught Akane behind her ankle. She pressed her attack and pounded
three more hard, quick punches into Akane's face and torso while the
other girl struggled to regain her balance. Once she had, Akane drove
a punch into Kodachi's ribcage that landed just enough off-center to
prevent several bones from cracking. Kodachi, on the defensive,
found herself unable to get past Akane's guard without leaving herself
more open than she cared to be, so it quickly became a battle of
endurance. Both girls traded hit after hit as they both refused to yield.
*Kodachi is a wonderful opponent,* thought Akane, pausing for a
moment to catch her breath. *She's strong, fast, and skilled. If
Ranma's skill is greater than hers or Nabiki's, then I have to see what a
fight to the finish with him is like.* Akane couldn't stop grinning at
the thought of her inevitable confrontation with Ranma. This was
what she lived for, the challenge of the fight. However, tempering that
was a desire to follow the example of her Arena idol, Shampoo, and
yield herself to a strong male. Akane considered herself to be an
Amazon at heart, and she was looking forward to finding out if her
ideal man was indeed Ranma Saotome.
Akane and Kodachi traded punches and kicks once again, in a wild
flurry of action that carried them back and forth across the paved area
in front of the Academy. Kodachi blocked a punch and counterstruck
in the same smooth motion, her fist snapping Akane's head to the
right. But Akane came back with a lightning-quick return strike of
her own, her backfist hitting Kodachi across the face. They broke
apart for another moment.
*I was wrong,* thought Kodachi, wiping at a thin line of blood that
leaked from her nose. *Akane is a lot tougher than she looks. She
started out this fight angry, but now she keeps grinning at me. What
does she keep grinning about? Does she think she's won?* Kodachi
paused and tried to think of a way to win. All of her usual strategies
had failed to put Akane down, and she had taken much more abuse in
this fight than she had in a long while. *She can't be able to take
much more of this.*
"The dancing is over, Kodachi," said Akane suddenly. She could
feel one of her eyes swelling up, and the taste of blood had not left her
mouth in some time. "Now you and I are going to get serious." She
started moving forward, ignoring these distractions.
Kodachi readied herself. She felt bruises on top of bruises all up
and down the length of her body, and she now felt like she was
fighting in mud, her movements were so sluggish. Her injuries had
tired her out, but it looked like Akane was able to take even more
punishment still. The thought of losing to someone like Akane was
anathema to Kodachi, so she wasn't about to willingly give up. *No
retreat, no surrender,* Kodachi thought grimly to herself. *I am a
Kunou, a samurai, and I refuse to yield!* Her focus was restored, and
Kodachi moved forward to meet Akane.
The eyes of their many watchers were riveted upon them as the two
girls came together in a last sequence of strikes. Powerful blows that
would have been easily blocked or dodged earlier, slipped through
defenses now ragged from exhaustion. Akane took a solid shot up
from beneath her jaw from Kodachi's elbow. A split second later,
Kodachi felt Akane's fist impact against her shoulder right at the joint,
turning her entire left arm numb. Akane followed up by driving her
knee low into Kodachi's right side, but the young noblewoman
managed to blunt the blow's damage by twisting away at the last
moment.
Her left arm hanging limp, Kodachi managed to execute a side kick
that gave her the satisfaction of hearing her foot crack against Akane's
ribs, but she was unable to tell if she had broken any bones. However,
the effort to do so had cost her dearly, and her vision was graying out.
Kodachi felt herself stumble back and fall against the high stone and
cement wall behind her, but she struggled to remain standing even as
her knees gave out on her. *She's so strong,* thought Kodachi as her
thoughts blurred. *She's so strong.*
"Unhh!" Akane cried, staggering back from Kodachi's last-ditch
assault, her ribs flaring with agony. She fell to her knees on the cool
pavement, wrapping her arms around her torso, her vision blurring
from her exhaustion and pain. Akane looked up and dimly saw
Kodachi slumped against the wall by the main gate, her head bowed.
*I c-can't lose...* she thought as she struggled to rise once again to her
feet. *Mother didn't raise me to be a loser. I am a warrior, just like
she was.*
Akane managed to slowly stagger over to Kodachi and lifted the
other girl's face up by the hair to punch it, but she had already fallen
unconscious. Akane felt a powerful thrill of victory surge through her
over her downed foe. It even managed to overcome the pains of the
multiple bruises and other injuries that was making it hard for her to
concentrate now. She sat down against the wall, sliding down next to
Kodachi, suddenly feeling so very tired. *I'll just rest here and catch
my breath,* thought Akane as her thoughts blurred to a gray fog.
*Nabiki will cover for me again. She always does...* Akane's last
thought faded to black as she fell unconscious.
Nabiki left her assistants to pay off the bets on Akane and rushed to
her sister's side. She was right behind Gosunkugi and a few others
from Akane's unofficial fan club on campus. The spooky little esper
boy was patting Akane's wrist, trying to wake her. Nabiki shouldered
him aside, earning a dark expression from him that lasted for only a
moment before being replaced by one of Gosunkugi's usual obsequious
looks that he always gave her.
Nabiki looked Akane over, even peeling back each eyelid to see how
dilated Akane's pupils were, all of her training in advanced first aid
techniques being put to good use. *Looks like little sister is simply out
cold,* she thought calmly, surveying the damages to her sister. *No
broken bones as far as I can tell, except for maybe those ribs.*
"Somebody see to Kunou-san," ordered Nabiki. She and Yohko
picked Akane up between them and carried her off to the Academy
infirmary.
******************************
"Let's go," said Asuka suddenly, her voice neutral, startling Ayako
from her observance of the activities over by the wall as cadets rushed
towards the fallen pair. "I've seen enough of this. I now know all that
I need know, to achieve my victory over Kodachi when I face her next.
She has obviously run from my growing skills at combat, but I intend
to see to it that she kneels before me and acknowledges my supremacy
before all of Blackhall Academy, or I shall deal with her just as that
vicious Tendou girl did. Now it is time for me to train for my day of
victory." A sudden burst of chilling laughter came out of Asuka, and a
moment later she and Ayako were gone over the wall.
******************************
Ranma arrived at the campus a few minutes later, while the cadets
were still talking about the fight, but he did not pay them any heed.
His mind was already preoccupied with thoughts about the strange
event that had occurred during his walk to the Academy campus. He
slowly wandered past several knots of cadets, unnoticed by all save for
a single exception.
Hikaru Gosunkugi eyed the pigtailed scientist with a sullen look of
hatred filling his sunken eyes. *It was for your sake that my Akane-
chan now lies injured, Ranma Saotome,* thought the esper boy with a
deeper anger than he had ever felt before towards anyone, even against
Kodachi. He had very quickly probed Akane's mind while she lay
unconscious, and her many scattered thoughts about why she had
fought with Kodachi had shocked him deeply. *It was not enough for
you that you charmed Akane-chan by revealing your skills as a martial
artist to her. Now you draw another woman that you have ensnared
into your webs to this campus, and that she-demon fought with my
sweet Akane-chan over you. If I only had the power to destroy you, I
would.*
Unaware of the level of emotion directed at him, Ranma continued
on into the main building. It was only when he was outside his
homeroom that he stopped to wonder why Akane hadn't assaulted him
yet today. He had been half-expecting her to be lying in wait for him
at the main gate. It was a relief to him that she was not.
******************************
"Explain yourselves to me."
Akio and Kena looked at each other nervously, both of them now
swathed in more bandages than the day before. To one side, Anji wore
a look of supreme displeasure that somehow made his face even more
frightening-looking to the two bullies. Soujirou stood with his bokken
resting on his shoulder as he studied his two teammates, a smile on his
lips that did not reach his eyes.
"It was..." the rest of Kena's speech faded off into a mumble as he
looked down at the floor. Akio, his mouth wired shut from his broken
jaw, somehow looked even more miserable than he had before.
Atop the raised area at the end of the room, the figure of their boss
moved in the shadows that he favored. He thought that it made him
look cooler as a leader to do so, but his anger at this new disruption to
his plans overcame that. He strode forward into the light and grabbed
Kena by the collar of his uniform.
"Tell me the name of whoever did this!" thundered the brown-eyed
boy as he shook Kena by the collar. "Was it Ranma Saotome once
again?!"
"It was Nabiki Tendou," said Kena, his eyes refusing to meet those
of his leader. "She broke Akio's jaw and broke my nose again. I'm so
sorry, Kashuoh-san! Boss, let us have another chance!" With a look
of extreme distaste, Kinnousuke Kashuoh released his follower and let
him slump to the floor.
"Nabiki Tendou," muttered Kinnousuke, straightening his Science
blue cadet uniform. "She takes a direct hand against me now, rather
than let others continue to do her dirty work." A solemn look on his
face, he walked back to his chair. Shortly before he reached it, he
turned to the Wolf Pack and ordered, "Leave me to my thoughts. I
must make new plans."
"Yes, Boss," muttered each of them, Akio's only coming out as a
few unintelligible syllables. They quickly filed out of the room, and
Kinnousuke leaned forward, a brooding look on his face.
"Why do you put up with those idiots, Kinnousuke-sama?" asked a
female voice from behind him. Three tall, female figures emerged
from the shadows to stand near him as the lights came up in the room,
all dressed in very stylized versions of the Academy's Security cadet
uniform: the speaker, a short-haired redhead, wore a military cap as an
accessory to her uniform; a blonde with the bangs of her straight hair
swept over one eye; and a black-haired girl with deep blue highlights
in her tresses. The now fully lit room lights revealed Kinnousuke's
personal bodyguards, and the reason behind his iron control over the
warriors that made up the Wolf Pack.
Each girl appeared to be in her late teens at the oldest, dressed in
individually modified versions of a female Security cadet uniform that
had abbreviated blouses and jackets, leaving part of their trim midriffs
bare. They were each approximately one-point-seven meters tall, the
blonde being the tallest by an extra couple of centimeters, and all of
them were somewhat broad-shouldered for women, with athletic and
quite well-proportioned figures. The tailoring of their uniform jackets
hid little of their assets in that particular regard.
Their most distinctive features however, were the two tapering, cat-
like ears atop their heads and their slit-pupiled eyes, both features
marking them as creations of JuGen Corporation. Other than these
two non-human features, they were all beautiful women in form. Each
of them was an experimental prototype to JuGen's three new lines of
Catgirl Synthetics, humanoid replicants created for the purposes of
being exotic sexual companions and bodyguards for the very wealthy,
and these prototype units were named after their series designations.
They were designed to follow up on the great success of the original
Puma Series.
Like the Pumas before them, these new models had received strong
mental conditionings and personality overrides implanted into them,
and at the core of their identities, all three of them had been given two
main motivations. They had been imprinted to love and to be loyal to
their master without question, and they all did so with a passion. They
were eager to please him, willing to do any and all tasks that he bade
them do, even if it meant dying on his behalf or killing in his name.
For these three prototypes, that master was Kinnousuke Kashuoh,
the heir to the Kashuoh Family's vast financial holdings, among which
was a significant percentage of JuGen itself. Due to the desires of
their creators, each of them was presently a teenager physically, but
they would age and mature as a normal human would. Like his father
before him, Kinnousuke had received the three catgirls as a present, a
mark of his ascension into manhood. His father presently had two
Puma Series units as his "companions."
"We await your bidding, Kinnousuke-sama," said the redhead. All
three young women then knelt before him, their eyes lowered to look
at the floor until they had been given his permission to rise. Each of
them had their ears cocked forward to listen to his command. From
where he stood, Kinnousuke, a cold smile on his lips, took a long
moment to study them.
The redhead with jade-green eyes was named Tiger, and she was
the semi-official leader of this trio of lethal lovelies. She wore a pair
of long trousers that flared out at the knees, Prussian style, before
being tucked into calf-length boots, and her military-style hat was
perched at a fashionable angle between the two cat-like ears atop her
head. She was also the eldest, after a fashion, the first one decanted
and given in service to Kinnousuke at JuGen's facilities. Her model's
hardwired reflexes and skills in combat were arguably the greatest of
the trio, programmed into her nerves and brain during her creation. In
addition, she was also implanted with several optional skills beyond
those of a strictly combat nature.
The middle one was named Panther. She was the muscle of the
trio, her model was designed to be a little stronger physically than the
other two, but she was also a little bit slower as well, both physically
and mentally. She was the most aggressive of the three catgirls, and
she had enjoyed the task of beating up the members of the Wolf Pack
for her master. Her long blonde hair was worn straight, and a lock of
her bangs seemed to perpetually cover one of her steel-colored eyes,
usually the left one. Like Tiger, she wore long trousers tucked into
calf-length boots, but hers fit snugly against her long legs over their
entire length.
The last one was Lynx. She was the quietest of the trio, an athletic
and trim dark-haired girl with cobalt-blue eyes. Her model was the
weakest physically by a small margin than the others, but her mind
had a special ability to analyze an opponent or a combat situation with
incredible speed. And she was also a little bit faster physically than
even Tiger. Unlike how the first two were dressed, she wore a very
short skirt that was slit up one side to her hip, exposing her long,
shapely legs. Instead of boots, she wore fashionable shoes on her feet.
Kinnousuke considered all three of them to be useful tools in his
plans while he attended the Academy. They had "convinced" each of
the members of the Wolf Pack to serve him as his agents among the
masses by beating them brutally to gain their loyalty, but that action
was now appearing to be a severe mistake. Two of the Wolf Pack,
picked for their supposedly high-caliber skills at combat, had already
fallen to totally unexpected opponents, first Ranma Saotome and now
Nabiki Tendou.
*Nabiki Tendou,* thought Kinnousuke with an angry look, before it
turned wistful a moment later. *How I long to claim you for myself, to
bend that iron will of yours to my desires. I would have you as my
own consort, placing you by my side at your proper place as a woman,
if you would only yield to me as your master, as is my right as a man.
After all, I should be the one who runs things at this Academy, not a
mere woman such as yourself. Women were made to serve men, and I
will see your beautiful body bowing down before me, even as my three
pretty playthings do now. Someday soon, you will be mine to do with
as I please, Nabiki Tendou, and nothing will stand in the way of that
goal. I intend to own you utterly, body and soul.*
"Rise, my pets," said Kinnousuke. The three catgirls stood up, all of
them gazing at him with clear adoration evident in their eyes, their
cat-like ears cocked forward to listen to his every word as they awaited
his orders. He turned his back upon them, pacing back to his chair
before turning around to face them once more. "I am very troubled by
these new developments."
"Kinnousuke-sama," said Tiger, an almost purring undertone to her
voice, a seductive sound that appeared to have no effect on him. She
walked over and stood behind him, her hands rising to begin rubbing
at his shoulders. "Allow me to soothe you, Master." Her strong hands
began to gently knead at the tautness in his muscles. The other two
catgirls started to move forward, but a cold glance from his eyes froze
them in their places, and their ears drooped in sadness. He shrugged
Tiger's hands from his shoulders with a brusque movement of his
arms, and her ears flattened gloomily like the others, a clear barometer
to her mood. "Kinnousuke-sama?"
"Not now, Tiger," reproved Kinnousuke coolly. She backed up a
single pace from him. "I have to get to my first class now, but I will
have tasks for you later though. I want all of you to wait for me here,
and I will return during lunchtime." He walked towards the door.
"Yes, Kinnousuke-sama," intoned all three of them, bowing their
heads as they watched him depart, their ears twitching slightly. Once
he was gone, they turned to face each other.
"He was thinking about _her_ again," said Tiger, a deep frown on
her face, her ears flat with her anger. "How I have grown to hate the
name of Nabiki Tendou!"
"Why would he ever want such a frail human woman when he has
us?" wondered Panther, anger in her voice. "I could break the little
bitch in two with my bare hands."
"That would most likely displease Kinnousuke-sama, if we killed
her," said Lynx, her ears laid back as she thought about the matter.
"He wants her for himself as a consort."
"The very idea," snorted Panther. "Only the three of us are suitable
consorts for Kinnousuke-sama. When I think of how her defiance has
hurt him, I want to kill her!" She flexed her hands into fists.
"Killing her is not an option at this time," said Tiger with a note of
regret. "However, she has revealed herself to be a fighter of some
skill. That opens up another option."
"You have an idea, Tiger?" quickly asked Panther, both of her ears
swiveling forward to listen to her "sister."
"Perhaps," said Tiger. "We defeated those four useless fools in the
Wolf Pack easily enough, even when they fought together, and they
were supposedly the strongest fighters at this Academy, next to Akane
Tendou. Defeating a single human woman like Nabiki Tendou should
pose no great difficulty to any one of us, and then we can force her to
kneel before Kinnousuke-sama and swear loyalty to him. I'm sure that
such a thing would please him greatly, though why he would want a
soft, human girl like her when he already has three strong consorts
like us, all eager to please him, is simply beyond me." Tiger's tone of
voice betrayed her deep contempt for all human women.
"But he has not bedded any of us in a while," said Lynx softly, her
tone a little mournful. "Does he not find us desirable anymore?"
"Shut up, Lynx!" said Tiger, her face blushing as red as her hair
from her own unfulfilled desires for their master. "It has not been that
long. He is simply distracted by his frustrations with the Tendou girl.
She is at fault for this, do you hear me? This is all Nabiki Tendou's
fault!"
"What about Saotome?" asked Lynx, ignoring Tiger's outburst. Her
soft voice was thoughtful, and one ear was cocked forward to point in
Tiger's direction. "He might act to defend her. He defended the other
Tendou girl, after all."
"If he interferes, then we destroy him," said Tiger in a matter of fact
tone of voice. "He caused pain to Kinnousuke-sama by daring to
interfere with his plans for the younger Tendou bitch, and for that act
alone I would cheerfully break Saotome in two." Tiger made a fist
with both hands and pantomimed the action, a light glinting in her
slit-pupiled green eyes, her ears flattened to her head.
"It sounds like a good plan Tiger," said Panther. She smacked a fist
into the open palm of her opposite hand. "I look forward to this. So
when do we put your plan into action?"
"I'm not sure," replied Tiger, her ears cocked in puzzlement. "I
suggest that we watch and wait for a while. It may be that we will be
sent against Nabiki Tendou today, and then we can have some fun
with her before we present her battered body to Kinnousuke-sama."
"I miss Kinnousuke-sama already," said Lynx softly. Her ears
drooped in sadness.
"Shut up, Lynx!" shouted the other two catgirls in stereo.
******************************
The limousine arrived at the grounds of Whitehall Academy, and
Kunou waited briefly inside for the driver to open the door for him.
He tapped the hilt of his bokken with two fingers, and his thoughts
were dark as he had found himself growing concerned during the short
ride to Whitehall to have his sister be so far from him, her innocence
unguarded from the lustful depredations of the commoners and even
the lower-born nobles that infested the Imperial Academy. The
thought of her consorting with the likes of Ranma Saotome set his
teeth on edge.
*This day will be long,* thought Kunou, as he emerged from the
interior of the vehicle. He saw Mikado lazily lounging on the front
steps. Kunou gave a brief wave of greetings to his fellow among the
Duelists of Whitehall, as the members of the Kendo Club were more
commonly known. Kunou felt that their nickname was appropriate,
and he prided himself on being known as the pre-eminent Duelist
among all of his noble peers.
"Greetings, Kunou-kun," said Mikado, standing up and brushing an
invisible particle of dirt from his trousers. "I see that your sister did
not arrive with you."
"Truly you do not know how lucky you are, Sanzenin-kun, to not
have to put up with the whims of a younger sister," grumbled Kunou.
"A sister can be a sore trial to a nobleman, especially when she has
been turned against her own brother by the schemes and honeyed
words of a wretched knave."
"So does this walking dead man have a name?" said Mikado with
an oddly neutral expression. Kunou looked at him and chuckled.
"Aye, he does," said Kunou, his hand firmly gripping the pommel of
his bokken. "Ranma Saotome. I intend to humble the vile wretch in
single combat before all who are there to witness it. As the undefeated
Duelist that I am, he shall prove to be little challenge to my prowess.
Then, when he is licking the dust at my feet, after I have humbled him
utterly, I intend to show my sister what a weak and worthless man she
has chosen to love."
"If by some chance you fail," said Mikado in as diplomatic of tones
as he could manage. "I shall challenge him as well." A light shone in
his eyes as he spoke. *No one is worthy of your sister, my friend, but
me. I shall gladly help you in dealing with this low-born upstart.*
Kunou grunted and nodded, grateful to have such a selfless and
faithful friend as Mikado to act as his second. "It shall be a glorious
day today," said Kunou. "I shall smite the villainous Saotome with my
trusty weapon. However, If I should somehow fail, then my second
shall take my place on the field of battle, but only a God-given miracle
can save Saotome from my puissant prowess. Mark my words, gentle
friend, I shall defeat Ranma Saotome, and he shall rue the day that he
ever heard the name of Kunou."
******************************
Ranma sat at his desk and looked out the window as he waited for
their new instructor to arrive. He had just overheard the talk about the
fight between Akane and Kodachi from some of the male cadets in his
class, and the news had left him feeling morose. *This day is already
starting to look bad for me,* he thought, his eyes following a cloud
moving across the sky. *I think I'm just going to go hide in my lab
after homeroom period is over.*
The door opened, all eyes but his turned to face the door, and there
were some immediate soft whistles made by several of the male cadets.
Ranma, puzzled by the sounds behind him, turned to face the door and
saw the new instructor, a rather stunning-looking woman. Instructors
were not required to wear uniforms like cadets, and her outfit revealed
more than it concealed her figure. She was dressed in a low-cut black
top that showed a moderate amount of cleavage beneath a white jacket,
a gray skirt that rested several centimeters above her knees, and a pair
of black pumps. Topping all of this was a lustrous mane of reddish
hair that fell between her shoulders like a wave of fire. Her eyes swept
the room in a cool gaze, and calm was quickly restored.
As a unit, the class rose and bowed to the new instructor before they
retook their seats. Ranma, finding the new instructor to be far easier
on the eyes than the old man who had been it before her, hoped that
Sensei Tokimo stayed away for a long time. She shut the door behind
her and strode the short distance to the desk, her heels making a soft
clicking sound on the hardwood floor. She set her attach� case on the
desk and turned back to face the class, clearing her throat gently.
"I am your new instructor for your homeroom, Ayaka Kisaragi," she
said in a clear voice. She sat down on the edge of the desk and crossed
her long legs, and the sound of several male throats swallowing as one
accompanied the action. A few of the girls looked very unhappy with
several of the boys in the room. "I expect you to listen to what I have
to teach you with respect, and we'll get along fine. Cross me, and
you'll regret it. Do we understand each other?"
"Yes, Sensei!" roared the class, Ranma's voice among them.
"Good," Ayaka said pertly, uncrossing and recrossing her legs the
opposite way. *Heh,* she thought with amusement, letting a smile
find its way to her face. *This will be an easy assignment.* Her eyes
swept the room as she nodded, pleased. She pulled out the attendance
roll book from her attach� case and began to read off names.
"Saotome," said Ayaka finally, after reading off many names and
listening for the replies.
"Here, Sensei," Ranma called out. She gave him a very enigmatic
smile for a moment, before moving on to the next name. Ranma went
back to admiring the new instructor. His concerns about the events of
this morning faded to the back of his mind.
"Ranma Saotome," suddenly crackled the speaker in the classroom.
"Please report to the Dean's office immediately." Ranma got up, Miss
Kisaragi nodded her permission for him to leave, and he headed out of
the classroom.
*I wonder what the Dean could want to see me about now?*
******************************
Akane slowly returned to consciousness, and the first sensation that
greeted her was pain. Her body hurt all over. She sighed and tried to
relax back against the soft mattress beneath her. Even such a simple
thing as breathing hurt, so she made herself take little panting breaths.
When she finally opened her eyes, the first sight that she saw was
Nabiki looking at her from a nearby chair, a smile on her face.
"I see that you're back among the living, little sister," said Nabiki in
a pleased voice. "Looks like you bit off a little more than you could
chew this time. Does it hurt much?" Nabiki examined the bandages
wrapped around Akane's chest.
"I hurt all over," Akane moaned out. "How badly am I injured,
Nabiki?"
"Not too badly," answered Nabiki. "You have some bruised ribs, a
few moderate contusions, and some minor muscle damage. None of
your internal organs were injured, and you also managed to avoid a
concussion by some small miracle. The doctor said that you should be
fine in a couple of days if you take it easy." Nabiki paused as she
looked over her beaten up sister. "That means no fighting with Ranma
over that time, and no morning spars with me. So, was it worth it?"
"Every fight is worth it," said Akane, nodding slightly. "A fighter
can only improve by challenging and defeating strong opponents." It
was something that their mother used to say, a phrase that Akane had
taken to heart over the years since her death. Akane looked her older
sister squarely in the eyes. "You don't know the thrill of combat like I
do. You can't understand what it means to me to fight."
*Oh, I think I do,* mused Nabiki. *Or at least I'm beginning to.*
"Miss Tendou?" said the nurse, looking at Nabiki. "The Dean
wishes to speak with you. Your sister needs to get her rest anyway."
"All right," said Nabiki. She smiled down at Akane. "You take
care of yourself, little sister. Get some sleep. I'll be taking you home
over lunch period."
On a cot similar to the one that Akane was resting on, Kodachi
woke up to the sounds of the two Tendou sisters speaking, and she
immediately wished that she hadn't. Her face felt puffed up and hurt
quite a bit, and her body had pains all up and down its length. *That's
what I get for fighting with so much arrogance. Fighting with Asuka
was one thing, but Akane Tendou is another level of threat entirely.
She is a much stronger fighter.* Kodachi relaxed back into the bed
she was lying in. *That's what I get for underestimating you, Akane
Tendou. However, the next time I face you will be different.*
Kodachi looked out the window, where a songbird had begun to
sing in the tree outside. "Oh, Ranma," she sighed softly, her voice
only a bare whisper. "I will prove myself worthy of you. I will train
myself more diligently for the next time, and then Akane Tendou will
learn that I am the superior woman. Nobody is going to have you but
me." She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
******************************
Ranma was waiting in the area outside the Dean's office when
Nabiki walked in the door. When she saw him, a warm flutter went
through her heart that surprised her with its intensity. Ranma gave
her a neutral look, his own thoughts well-hidden from his face. She
walked over and sat down across from him in one of the other chairs,
her usual cool poise quickly returning to her. She crossed her legs and
arranged her skirt demurely. A quick glance of her eyes showed that
Ranma was looking away from studying her.
*What is it with you and girls lately, Ranma?* the pigtailed scholar
asked himself. The brief sight of Nabiki's trimly muscular legs seemed
to burn in his thoughts. There was something different about the way
that she was walking today, he had noticed, but he wasn't sure what it
was. *It's probably nothing important,* he finally decided. To occupy
his mind, and prevent him from staring at Nabiki's body again, he
picked up a magazine from the table and thumbed through it.
*This is so strange,* thought Nabiki. *Here I am sitting near him,
and I can't think of a thing to say to him. After all, it's not as if I can
say, 'Oh, by the way Ranma, I know all about what you're doing in
your lab since I broke into it last night. I tried your device and now I
have all the skills of a martial artist version of myself in my head.'
Yeah, right. That would really endear me to him.* She shifted her
position in the hard, wooden chair, the electric tingling that Ranma
conjured in her was distracting her once again, but she was surprised
that it was occurring at such a distance. Almost two meters separated
their knees.
*I wonder what Nabiki is doing here?* wondered Ranma. *For that
matter, why am I here? The Dean has taken much more interest in me
over the last few days than he has in all of the weeks that have gone by
before.* Ranma shifted his position, trying to get comfortable in the
chair and failing. The strange tingling feeling that he had experienced
around each of the two Tendou sisters, and now also Kodachi Kunou,
was back once again. The smell of her soft perfume drifted across his
nose, but he forced himself to ignore it.
The door to the Dean's office opened at that moment, disrupting the
uncomfortable scene. Dean Fuyutsuki smiled at them from the open
doorway and spoke, "Please come in. I have some important things to
discuss with the two of you."
The two cadets filed in. Ranma let Nabiki walk in first, and he
caught another whiff of that faint perfume that Akane, Kodachi, and
Nabiki always seemed to be wearing. It was both invigorating and
slightly intoxicating to him whenever he smelled it. However, he was
getting used to it, so the effect was lessened a little from what it had
done to him during previous times.
They took the two seats in front of the Dean's desk, both of them far
more comfortable than the hardwood chairs that were outside in the
waiting area. Nabiki crossed her legs as she sat down, and Ranma
stole another glance at them as she arranged her skirt. He pulled his
eyes away from the sight quickly and returned his attention to the
Dean. Ranma and Nabiki just missed noticing the looks that they had
given each other when the other wasn't looking, but the Dean did not.
The possibilities that their actions raised did much to justify his
recent decision regarding them. *It's a shame that I will be losing the
younger Tendou girl soon,* he thought, glancing at the request for
transfer that he had received via fax an hour ago. *But it looks like
Nabiki and Ranma might be all I need. And there is also the Kunou
girl to be considered. Judging from my view of the fight that she had
with Akane earlier, Kodachi's abilities are considerable as well. She
will make an excellent replacement for Akane.*
Akane was being transferred to Furinkan Military Academy as of
tomorrow, a place that was filled with several decades of traditions, of
producing the very finest soldiers of the Empire. An abnormally high
percentage of its graduates went on to fill the few available slots each
year in the various Special Forces training programs. Akane's mother,
Kimiko Tendou, was herself a former graduate of its hallowed halls.
For his part, the Dean thought that Akane would fit in well there.
"I suppose that you're both wondering why I have called you to my
office," said Dean Fuyutsuki pleasantly. He sat down in his large chair
and folded his hands together on his desk, a fatherly smile appearing
on his face. "I have been requested to institute an immediate change
in your training schedules. Specifically, in your physical training."
Nabiki blinked in mild surprise, the coincidence a little jarring to
her. *I was going to volunteer to join Ranma's training class,* she
thought, sneaking another glance at the pigtailed boy seated next to
her. *That can be the only reason why Ranma and I would both be
here.*
"What sort of a change, Dean?" asked Ranma. He noticed Nabiki
glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.
"Sensei Takami and I have consulted about you and Nabiki," said
the Dean calmly. "And we have decided that it would be in both of
your best interests for Nabiki to join you in your extra training class.
We feel it would give both of you a chance to excel to the full limits of
your capabilities."
Ranma looked briefly at Nabiki, and said, "But Nabiki's a girl. She
won't be able to keep up with me." Ranma blinked. *Why the hell
did I just say that?*
"What was that, Saotome?" asked Nabiki, an odd glint suddenly
appearing in her eyes. "My, we are full of ourselves, aren't we?" She
stood up and planted her hands on her hips, her cool gaze not quite
glaring down at him. "Did I just hear you challenge me to be able to
keep up with you?" From deep inside herself, Nabiki felt an almost
undeniable urge to compete against Ranma suddenly come boiling up
to the surface. "I can keep up with any training that you can do,
Saotome."
"I doubt that," said Ranma, his male ego now running dangerously
out of control. His newfound sense of male pride absorbed from the
other Ranma had just taken full possession of his mouth. "Guys are
just naturally a little better at doing physical stuff." Nabiki raised one
eyebrow.
"Oh, really, Saotome?" asked Nabiki, her irritation growing. "I
happen to know that I can beat you at anything, but how about martial
arts?" Now it was Ranma's turn to get a funny look on his face. He
sprang to his feet.
"If you think that you can take me on, then you're welcome to try,"
said Ranma, a little irritated at Nabiki's smug certainty that she could
beat him. "Ranma Saotome doesn't ever back down from a challenge."
Both of them were now wearing similar looks, confidence bordering
on arrogance.
"Neither does Nabiki Tendou," she said, moving to stand nose to
nose with Ranma, her eyes almost level with his. "Care to put it to the
test?"
"Anytime you say, lady," said Ranma. "You can't be as tough as
your tomboy of a sister, after all."
For his part, the Dean was simply observing, finding the whole
exchange to be simply fascinating. He watched them face off, their
postures matching in aggressiveness. *Such strongly competitive
spirits in each of them,* he mused with a pleased feeling. *This will
surely bring out their best efforts. But, it does seem a little bit out of
character for them, based on the results of their last psychological
profiles. Interesting.* He chose that moment to interrupt them with a
loud whistle.
Both Nabiki and Ranma blinked at each other, looked at the Dean
with rather abashed looks, and then quickly sat down in their chairs.
"Now that I have your attention," said the Dean with a smile. "I can
see that you two have a difference of opinion to work out, so I propose
a test. Beginning today, Nabiki will join you in your physical training
class, Ranma." Ranma started to grumble, and the Dean held up a
hand. "I'm not finished with spelling out the nature of the test. For
starters, you two are going to have a sparring match every day for the
next two weeks, to see who the better fighter is, since you both seem to
be so convinced that the other one isn't. If Nabiki manages to defeat
you in at least five of the twelve matches, Ranma, then you will cease
your protests and work with her in your class as a full partner."
"That won't be a problem for me, Dean," said Ranma confidently,
sparing a glance at Nabiki. "How about you, Nabiki?"
"Not a problem for me either, Saotome," said Nabiki with a smirk.
"I'll have those five wins before the first week is out."
"In addition," continued the Dean with a calm voice, before the two
cadets could come to blows right there in his office. "Nabiki will be
following your same exercise regimen, Ranma. Seeing that she is a
year ahead of you in her training, I'm anticipating that to be the least
problematic part of the test for her."
"A little competition will be good for you, Ranma-kun," purred
Nabiki with a wry smile, finding that she enjoyed teasing him like
this. *I wonder how much of this immense ego is from him, and how
much is from his counterpart?* For her part, Nabiki was not normally
quite this openly competitive, and she knew it, but there was just
something in Ranma's overly macho attitudes towards her that had
triggered an almost primal desire to test herself against him, similar to
the one that she had felt this morning that had inspired her to spar
against Akane. She suspected that it was some of that other Nabiki's
personality showing up in herself.
"If you can keep up with me, Nabiki, then you're welcome to try,"
said Ranma, finding a strange pleasure in the thought of a challenge to
his newfound abilities. "I won't go easy on you."
"Neither will I against you, Ranma-kun," said Nabiki with another
brief smirk. "I hope that you're as fast with your fists as you are with
your mouth." The two of them were now wearing matching smiles,
each of them subconsciously recognizing something in the other that
their counterparts had possibly never encountered before.
"My secretary has your new schedules at her desk, you two," said
the Dean, briefly interrupting the staring contest. "Pick them up on
the way back to your classes."
"Yes, sir," they said, almost in stereo. Ranma got up and walked to
the door, followed closely by Nabiki. The Dean smiled at the door
after it had closed behind them.
"Interesting," said the Dean to the empty room, a smile on his face.
"It will be quite fascinating to see where this leads." He pulled out his
notebook and began to write.
******************************
Nodoka heard the telephone rang while she was folding up the
morning laundry. She quickly muted the sound coming from the
television with the remote and picked it up. Genma had just left to
teach his morning classes, so she had the house to herself for the next
several hours.
"Hello," Nodoka said into the receiver.
"Good morning," said a pleasant female voice on the other end. "I
am looking for Nodoka Saotome. Do I have the honor of speaking to
her now?"
"Yes," said Nodoka, nodding slightly as she spoke. "This is Nodoka
Saotome. Who am I speaking with?"
"My name is Otsu Mitsuma," said the voice on the other end of the
phone. "Your name was given to me on a referral. You have a son by
the name of Ranma Saotome?"
"Yes, I do," said Nodoka, puzzled at where this was going. "What
is this all about?"
"This is your lucky day, Mrs. Saotome," said Otsu. "Your son's
name has been selected to receive a complimentary matchmaking from
the service that I work for, all free of charge to you."
"What service is that?" asked Nodoka, wondering at her good
fortune. It sounded too good to be true to her.
"Why, I'm calling from Chrysanthemum, the Empire's finest service
for matching the youth of the Empire," said Otsu brightly. "We offer a
complete line of marriage services, but we are the best-known name in
the matchmaking game. And I have been authorized to provide you
with the names and portfolios of three young women, each a possible
wife for your son, Ranma. If you're available, I can meet you anytime
today and present them to you. I think you'll find the daughter-in-law
that you've been looking for among them."
Nodoka found herself breaking out into a smile. This phone call
was the answer to her prayers. Genma had been concerned at the cost
of arranging for a matchmaker, claiming that Ranma was still too
young for such an expense, but now she had been given an opportunity
to bypass that objection. *This is wonderful news.*
"I could meet you for lunch, I suppose," said Nodoka, not wishing to
sound too eager if this was some sort of scam after all.
"Excellent notion, Mrs. Saotome," said Otsu. "How does Hanna
Miller's sound to you? It's an excellent restaurant."
"That sounds fine to me," said Nodoka. She had always been
curious to eat there. "Shall we say noon?"
"Noon it is then," said Otsu. "Until then."
Nodoka hung up the phone with a broad smile on her face. *I'm
going to find Ranma a bride today!*
******************************
Ranma unlocked the door to his lab, having just come from his
meeting with the Dean. He flipped on the lights with a casual move,
moving into the room and shutting the door before all of them could
even flicker on fully. *Why the hell did I mouth off like that in front
of Nabiki?* he wondered, flopping down on the couch and putting an
arm over his eyes. *I must have sounded like a complete jerk. If I had
said such a thing to my female quantum counterpart, Ranko, they'd be
prying my body out of a wall.*
He replayed the incident from his memories, but all he could seem
to focus on was the glimpse of Nabiki's legs, exposed as they were to
her knees for that brief instant that he had been looking at them. He
shook his head and sat up, disturbed at his thoughts. *And yet, where
does she get off acting so tough? She must know that I beat her little
sister in a fight, so why does she think that she could win against me?
Maybe a few days ago she could, since she has been training here at
the Academy a year longer than me, but I now have the skills of an
Heir to the Anything-Goes School of Martial Arts inside me. That
Ranma always wins in the end, and I think I'm gaining on his physical
abilities in my own training, so pretty soon I'm going to be the best
fighter in the region. There's no way that Nabiki Tendou is going to
be able to match that.*
Ranma decided that a little work would distract him from his new
problems, so he powered up his equipment. While it was warming up,
he pulled out his notebook and began to make a few little notes in the
margins around his new entries taken from Ranko's work. A brief
time later, he was writing in his notebook when he noticed something
strange in the startup messages, on the periphery of his vision.
*SYSTEM HAS 12 QUANTUM COORDINATES STORED IN
STABLE MEMORY
*What the?* thought Ranma, surprised to see that. *But there are
only supposed to be eleven.* He tapped at some keys, breaking out of
the program running to pull up the general system log. He scrolled
through it casually before he noticed something odd, and he stared in
brief amazement at the screen. *Someone ran a full test at 4:17 p.m.
yesterday?* Ranma tapped away at the keyboard, pulling up the file in
question and looking at its individual log. *But that was when I was
in the middle of my training class.*
Ranma restarted the program and loaded the file. He tapped a few
keys and was surprised once again to see where this new one was
placed among the timelines. "Band sixteen again," he mused aloud,
tapping his index finger against his chin as he rested it on his palm.
*I'm beginning to think that there's something odd about that region of
the parallel timelines, since it keeps drawing my equipment's scanning
pulses to it more than statistics would indicate. But this world wasn't
found using a scan of me, so whose mind was used as the template for
the scan? Since it wasn't me, it may not even have a counterpart for
myself.* Ranma shrugged his shoulders. *There's only one way to
find out for sure.*
His fingers tapped away at the keyboard quickly, setting up all of
the usual specifics for a test run, but only for ten minutes. Shortly,
Ranma tapped on a few final keys, before he pulled the headset off of
the workbench and laid back on the couch. He fumbled the headset
onto his skull and closed his eyes.
"Activating cycle."
******************************
***** Earth #0016-496
The brief period of nonexistence that accompanied a transit into the
mind of one of his quantum counterparts passed quickly. Ranma had
his suspicions that he was simply getting used to it, but it still left him
feeling unsettled each time. He blinked his eyes, finding himself to be
seated at a desk in a classroom that was similar to the one in the other
timeline. It gave him a very odd feeling of deja vu, even though the
classroom that he remembered was now farther from him than the
farthest star.
Ranma looked down and saw that he was wearing a school uniform
for Furinkan High School. The classroom was oddly quiet, only the
faint scratching of pencils on paper. Ranma looked down at the paper
on his desk. *An English test?* Half of the page was filled out, but a
few of those answers were wrong. Not knowing what else to do while
he waited for the memories of this life to appear, Ranma started to fill
out the rest of the page.
While he was diagramming a sentence for one of the questions, the
expected kaleidoscope of new memories suddenly whirled through his
mind. In this life, he had been raised by his mother and Soun Tendou
while his father had taken Nabiki (Nabiki?) out on the ten year long
training mission, and she was Heir to the Anything-Goes School. A
little over six weeks ago they had returned, and a world of strangeness
had come with them.
Nabiki was cursed to turn into a young man by the strange powers
of Jusenkyou's pools, and his father was once again cursed to turn into
a panda. *Why does Pop keep turning into a panda?* he wondered for
a moment. *Is there some strange meaning behind the curses? At
least I don't turn into a girl in this life. But Nabiki turns into a guy?*
More of the memories whirled past his mind's eye, too fast for him
to really lock onto anything but the most basic experiences. He had
had a crush on Kodachi Kunou here for many years, but she had never
returned his interest. Tatewaki Kunou was a friend of his in this life,
and he also pursued Nabiki as a love interest in her female form, but
as an enemy in Nabiki's male form. It was like watching the life of his
other counterpart reflected in a funhouse mirror, people were similar
but also different.
Ukyou Kuonji had shown up, and so had Ryouga Hibiki. Ryouga
had had a crush on Nabiki, and he had ended up as this Ranma's rival,
even though he was now interested in Akane. Akane had been his
fianc�, but that had been a doomed effort for years. After Nabiki's
return, events had followed a path that led him to becoming her fianc�,
to carry on the Anything-Goes School. Events had spiraled off into a
radically different path from there.
One thing stood out in this life that made Ranma feel strangely sad,
he was not the center of attention. In that other Ranma's life, where he
was the Heir to the School, he was the hero who dealt with all of the
problems that arose. Here, he was only a supporting character, and
that bothered him a little.
Other images roared through his mind with the speed of thought:
Happosai, the Founder of the Anything-Goes School and possibly
the most perverted man to have ever lived.
Perfume and Shampoo, Amazons that had pursued Nabiki from
China. Shampoo was pregnant with Nabiki-kun's child. Ranma's
mind reeled at that one.
The Principal of Furinkan, the Kunous' father, with a fetish for all
things Hawaiian.
Ukyou and Perfume became a couple. Ranma blinked, but the
memory was gone quickly.
The Road Ronin came to Furinkan....
Ranma's vision suddenly grayed out, and scattered all his thoughts
across the gulfs of paratime that he had crossed. There was something
in that last partial memory, something important to know, but it was
gone in the nonexistence of recall.
******************************
***** Earth #0001-001
"Recall complete," intoned the computer voice.
Ranma laid on the couch and let his mind try and sort through the
memories. He had hoped for a clue to whoever had used his device,
but none had appeared from his counterpart's memories. *That other
Ranma had lived a fairly normal life, until Nabiki had returned. She
was the Heir, not me, and the world was changed so drastically in the
wake of that different choice.*
Sitting up, Ranma laid the headset on the workbench, his thoughts
full of a strange wonder. *So many possibilities in the way things
could have turned out,* he thought with an odd smile on his face. He
closed his hand into a fist, feeling the muscles in his forearms tighten
up. *I just wish I could shake this feeling that the other shoe is about
to drop, somewhere.*
There was a thought nagging at the back of his mind, penetrating
his musings. It was something that he had noticed in the log file for
the test run. Shrugging his shoulders, Ranma sat down on the chair in
front of the terminal and started typing. He brought up the log file for
his just-completed test run. *Nothing out of the ordinary here.* He
saw that the system was running at a little above normal baseline in a
few areas, but everything appeared to be fine.
Then Ranma pulled up the log file for the test run that was done
during the time he was in his training class. He ran the numbers,
watching the graphs of the various system calculations as it made the
many minute adjustments that were needed during a test run to keep
the quantum pulse signal optimized. It was there that he finally saw
it, and his eyes widened.
"What the hell?" Ranma asked himself in a low tone. He closed
down that log file and ran the one from his first test. The same thing
was there, to an identical degree of variance from baseline. He quickly
ran through the log files to each of his other tests, but there was only
one other occurrence of significance.
What he was seeing was a minor power surge in the quantum flux
coil itself. One hundred and ten seconds into his first test run, the
power levels had surged up by six and a half percent for two full
seconds. On the test run that had occurred yesterday afternoon, the
surge had taken place at one hundred and nineteen seconds into the
run, also to a level of six and a half percent over baseline, for a period
of exactly two seconds. There were other surges that had taken place
over other test runs, but none of them had climbed over half a percent,
except for one of them. During Ranma's visit to Ranko's Earth, at four
hundred and eleven seconds into the run there had been a two percent
surge in the quantum flux coil's power levels for exactly one second of
duration.
*These mysterious surges might explain how I ended up with my
martial artist counterpart's skills in my brain,* he thought, cupping his
chin in his hand as he stared at the graphs on the screen. *But who
was the subject of the test yesterday?*
******************************
Nabiki sat in her class on Imperial History and was rather bored.
She had read the material being discussed over two weeks ago, and it
had bored her then too. She occupied her time by thinking about how
dull her life had been before yesterday, but it had taken a shock to her
system like looking at her life through new eyes to see how gray she
had let herself become inside. She no longer wanted the life that had
been her only option before yesterday, not really.
*You and I need to talk, Ranma-kun,* Nabiki thought, as her
ancient fossil of an instructor droned through the lesson. *After I
show you that I'm as good as you are. Maybe better.*
******************************
Slowly scratching towards consciousness, Akane awoke to find
herself in the infirmary awaiting Nabiki's escort home. She had been
having the most wonderful dream about Ranma and his fighting skills,
one in which she was the founding matriarch of a new and better tribe
of Amazons. All its members were women of superb Japanese stock
and full of life, similar to the Chinese Amazons who all aspired to
marry men of the Empire and become full Citizens. She might even
let a few of the Chinese Elders teach her tribe, at least until they had
no more to teach her. Akane hugged herself gently, feeling a faint
quiver of pleasure at the fading memories of that dream, one in which
Ranma had finally conquered her as she had long hoped to have a man
do, but the pain of her bruised ribs quickly stopped that action.
A few hours of sleep had restored much of her energy, even if it had
not healed her injuries. She felt the aches of her bruises and frowned,
slightly surprised that they were as deep as they were. *Normally my
bruises are almost half gone after a few hours. Kodachi is a great
fighter, but not as great as I am!* she thought with annoyance. They
represented the reasons why she would have to leave off from her
pursuit of Ranma for a day or so. Her frown soon turned into a smile
though, as she remembered the glorious fight earlier in the morning,
and her eventual triumph over her foe. *But at least I showed that
annoying bitch, Kodachi Kunou, who the better woman was,* she
thought happily, as she made a fist with her hand and remembered
how good it had felt every time one of her blows had struck home into
Kodachi's body.
Akane put her hands behind her head, linked her fingers together,
and gazed upwards at the plain white ceiling. There were several mild
pains coming from various points on her upper body at the action,
another reminder of the battle with Kodachi. Akane had long ago
trained herself to acknowledge an injury, catalogue its severity, modify
her tactics if necessary, and then ignore it while she fought. Slower
than many of her better opponents, she had learned how to take a hit
and keep fighting as the mainstay of her tactics. It was a good thing
that she had too, since she was sure that Kodachi's final strikes would
have kayoed her otherwise. Akane tongued the inside of her jaw,
feeling the slightly loosened molar.
*Such strength Kodachi has,* mused Akane, almost disappointed
that she had won. *Still, she should have expected to lose when she
challenged me. After all, I am a true warrior, tested in battle, like my
mother before me, and my own strength has proven itself many times.
If that pampered debutante knows what's good for her, then she'll run
back to that school full of weakling nobles where she belongs. I've
now shown her that Ranma rightfully belongs to me. He deserves a
strong woman at his side, someone who can keep up with his martial
arts skills.*
A curtain surrounded her bed and separated her from the next cot in
the infirmary area, but Akane could sense that another occupant was
in the room. She reasoned that it was most likely Kodachi. Akane
wasn't sure how she knew of the other girl's presence, but she did. She
debated saying something for several moments.
On the other side of the curtain, Kodachi rested uncomfortably. Her
body ached a bit from the severe abuse that she had undergone a few
hours earlier, but bedrest had helped restore her a great deal. She
slowly rolled over onto her side, trying to get more comfortable as she
thought about her morning fight with Akane, and her loss. *I'm sorry
that I failed you this time, Ranma,* she thought, wincing as she tried
to find a position that would ease the pressure on her bruises. *I let
myself be overconfident during the fight, and that was a very costly
mistake. It is one that I don't intend to make again.*
Kodachi closed one hand into a compact fist, the muscles of her
forearm standing out due to the tightness that she held it. She raised
her fist up and held it over her chest as she made a silent and solemn
vow to herself. *Akane Tendou shall fall by my hand, Ranma, my
Darling, I swear it, and then you and I will be free of her annoying
interference. You deserve a loving woman like myself in your life,
someone to make a home for you. Leave it to me, and I will take care
of that little, vicious, female brute.*
A pleasant fantasy of the embrace that Ranma would give her after
her eventual triumph over Akane brought a smile to Kodachi's face as
she laid her now open hand across her chest. She could see it now in
her thoughts...
******************************
The battle had obviously been brutal and savage up to this point, a
long, hard struggle from which only one could win in the end. Two
mighty female warriors were locked in mortal combat, fists and feet
trading punishing blows as the fight between them wound down, blood
dripping from several wounds and mixing with their hot sweat. One
warrior, Akane, is seen to have a cast to her face and body that is
vaguely demonic. And the other warrior maiden, Kodachi, carried an
air of noble virtue in her form. With one powerful blow, the fight
between them finally came to an end. One warrior fell, her body
unable to continue the fight, a look of fear filling her eyes as she gazed
upwards at the victor.
"I'm sorry, Kodachi!" Akane cried out in terror as she fell to her
knees before the other girl. Tears poured from her eyes as she began
to beg for mercy and forgiveness, her heart filled with sorrow for even
attempting to rise above her station and claim the handsome figure
who stood behind Kodachi, knowing that he was above such a lowly
wretch as herself. Even her brute strength and animal-like cunning
had shown itself to be no match for a true warrior such as Kodachi
Kunou.
Ranma stepped forward, his body clothed in fine silk robes, the very
image of a noble Lord of the Empire. His gaze was cold as he looked
down upon the pathetic figure humbling herself before his one, true
love. He scornfully turned his back on Akane's weakness, as she
continued to cry out and beg for mercy and forgiveness. He gently
took Kodachi's hand in his own and helped his lady-love to walk from
the place of battle.
The couple walked off a short distance, and as the sun began to rise,
they paused and stared into each other's eyes, a true love for the other
burning within each. Ranma swept Kodachi up in his arms, grateful
to her for her efforts at saving him from one who was so unworthy. He
brought her eager lips in for a warm and passionate kiss. She felt a
maidenly blush upon her cheeks at the depths of his desire for her.
*Oh, yes, Ranma,* she thought with certainty. *For you, I shall
defeat any foe that stands between us and our destiny together. No
other woman shall have you, for your fate lies with me.*
******************************
Kodachi's fantasy faded, and she found herself staring at the curtain
around her bed. There was an itch at the back of her brain telling her
that an enemy was about, and she was sure that that could only mean
one thing, that Akane Tendou was nearby. This realization pulled her
thoughts away from her fantasy, and her eyes glared at the curtain.
"Are you awake, Kodachi?" Akane called out, her voice neutral in
tone. "I can hear you moving around."
"What do you want, Tendou?" grumbled Kodachi. She rolled onto
her back once more. It was about the most comfortable of the many
positions that she had tried to lie in.
"So, are you going to give up on trying to take Ranma away from
me now?" asked Akane, purposely putting a taunt into her words, a
smirk on her face as she stared at the plain ceiling. "I've shown you
that I'm the better woman."
Suddenly, the curtain by Akane's bed was ripped aside and a furious
Kodachi stood there, almost blazing with anger. The dramatic effect
was quickly ruined though, when her brief surge of adrenaline faded
away, leaving her to slump a little against the curtain frame, her body
trembling slightly. Kodachi's eyes glared into Akane's, and her facial
expression spoke volumes.
"You think you've beaten me?" asked Kodachi, anger resonating in
her every tone. Her breathing deepened a little. "That was only round
one, Akane Tendou. Our battle with each other over Ranma has only
just begun." She dropped back to sit on her cot, but her eyes remained
locked onto Akane's face. "Besides which, you did not defeat me. It
was a draw, neither one of us left the field under our own power is my
guess. Otherwise why are you here, and why were you unconscious
just a few minutes ago?"
Akane felt an odd sort of joy fill her, mixed with anger at Kodachi's
continued willingness to defy her. She smiled in a disturbing fashion
as she realized that she had obtained a new sparring partner, one who
would test her fighting skills to the limit over a prize that Akane knew
was worth fighting for all the way to the core of her being. A moment
later, her face fell into a deep frown as she sat up on her cot, all of her
movements stiff from the pains of her injuries. She glared at Kodachi
and said, "Oh, yeah? Looks like I didn't hit you hard enough to drive
you away. There's more of what I gave you this morning just waiting
for you!"
"You are not woman enough to win the war declared between us,
Akane Tendou," said Kodachi coldly. "You were lucky today, since I
underestimated your capabilities as an opponent. However, the next
time will be different, and it will be I who shall be standing over your
beaten body at the end. Savor your assumed victory over me today, as
it was your last." Her fists gripped the sheets on the cot as she felt the
deep anger rising in her once again, and the need to protect Ranma
from the other girl who was matching her glare for glare.
"Better bring friends next time, Kodachi, lots of them," said Akane
angrily, as she quickly swung both of her legs over the edge of the cot.
She bunched her right hand into a fist, the muscles in her forearms
equal to the ones in Kodachi's own. "It's you who isn't woman enough
to beat me. I'm going to have Ranma for myself, and you won't stop
me. He's mine!"
The two leaped to their feet. Both of them looked a little unsteady
on their legs as they glared into each other's eyes with anger. Akane
reached out and took a tight grip on a handful of the material of
Kodachi's white blouse with her left hand. Kodachi, from her facial
expression visibly affronted at such an action, mirrored the move and
grabbed a fistful of Akane's blouse as well with her own left hand.
They pulled each other nose to nose, their faces separated by only a
few inches, each with naked hatred for the other blazing in their eyes.
They both tried to stare the other down and failed.
"You'll get Ranma over my dead body, Akane Tendou," thundered
Kodachi in very cold tones, her body resonating with her outrage. She
could feel the adrenaline beginning to rush through her battered and
weakened body, and her breathing deepened a little more. "The last
thing that he needs is a little savage such as yourself. A barbarian like
you could never give him any of the love and tenderness that a man
such as Ranma needs. You probably don't even know the first thing
about how to be tender with a man, I would bet." That her statement
could be taken a few ways did not appear to concern Kodachi at the
moment. She was damned if she was going to let the girl staring her
squarely in the eyes have Ranma.
"Oh, yeah?" growled Akane. "As if a strong man like my Ranma
could ever find any use for a soft, pampered, inbred debutante like
yourself." Her voice dripped with heavy sarcasm as she smirked at
Kodachi. "I already showed you once that a spoiled, little rich girl
such as yourself isn't capable of taking my Ranma away from me. So
go back to dating your cousin/brother/father, whichever you prefer to
call him! Ranma Saotome is mine!" Akane folded her free hand into
a fist, moments away from driving it through Kodachi's face, and the
other girl was doing the same, when a voice interrupted them.
"I just can't leave you two alone for long, can I, ladies?" asked a
rather sardonic voice from the doorway. Nabiki watched Akane and
Kodachi turn to look at her in surprise, and she made a tisking sound
in her mouth at the sight of the two girls prepared to beat each other to
a pulp again. "I mean, really, couldn't the two of you wait until you
both healed up a bit before starting another fight with each other?"
"Your sister started this, Nabiki Tendou," growled out Kodachi, her
eyes returning to glare at Akane once again, the fist that was already
gripping Akane's blouse tightening a little more. She felt Akane doing
the same action in response, and they returned to glaring at each other.
"She has a very nasty tendency to lay claim to things that do not truly
belong to her."
"Who says that Ranma doesn't belong to me?" Akane growled back.
Her right fist was cocked back into striking position, and so was her
foe's. "I'll fight anyone who tries to take him from me." She briefly
smirked at Kodachi. "And I'll win, too."
Nabiki's sudden whistle surprised both girls enough to break it up
before they could start throwing punches at each other again. She
stepped into the infirmary and was grateful that the nurse was out of
the room. With a brief smirk, Nabiki picked up Akane's jacket from
the chair that it was laying on, and then she looked at both girls
meaningfully with one eyebrow raised. They reluctantly released their
grips on each other's clothes and stepped apart. Nabiki tossed Akane
her jacket.
"Get dressed, Akane," said Nabiki. "I'm here to take you home.
You need to rest up if you want to be able to fight again soon, right?"
She stood with her foot gently tapping the ground as she watched
Akane put on her jacket. Kodachi sat back down on her bed and just
glared at the younger Tendou sister.
*Those two really do have a pretty serious hatred going for each
other,* thought Nabiki with another brief smirk. *It's a pretty good
thing that I decided to talk to Daddy tonight about getting Akane away
from here soon, or I'm afraid that they might kill each other. And
little sister really will be much happier at Furinkan, since I've heard
that the whole student body there loves to fight as much as she does.
I'm sure that it won't take her long to find a guy there to take Ranma's
place in her heart, since all she really needs is a strong martial artist to
fight with. Then all I have to worry about is getting rid of Kodachi.*
While Nabiki was considering things, Akane finished fixing up her
clothes, except for her uniform tie, which she left off.
"See you around, Kodachi," said Akane with a smug look as she
patted Kodachi's face. "I won't be so gentle with you the next time."
Akane picked up her bookbag and sauntered out of the room. Nabiki
sighed and followed along behind her. The two of them walked down
the hallway, leaving Kodachi to glare at the half-closed door.
*I'll show you the true meaning of pain, the next time that we duel,
Akane Tendou,* thought Kodachi with a mental snarl. She began to
straighten up her blouse and get dressed. Her jacket was lying folded
over one of the chairs, and she picked it up.
Out in the hallway, Ranma peeked around the corner once more
and was finally rewarded with the sight of Akane and Nabiki walking
away down the hall to the main door of the Academy. He breathed a
sigh of relief when they went outside. He had been feeling somewhat
responsible over Akane's actions against Kodachi all morning, and it
had been distracting him from his work. All he had to show for the
several hours spent in his lab this morning were a few doodlings in his
notebook. It was just not like him to be so easily distracted, but there
was so much going on in his life right now. He kept feeling like an
explosion or something was imminent, and it was making him jumpy.
*I wonder if Kodachi would even be glad to see me?* he thought as
he looked around the corner once again. *Akane probably beat her up
because of me, so I wouldn't blame her if she was mad at me over it. I
mean, after all, Akane went out of her way to make it seem pretty clear
that she was my girlfriend or something.* Mustering up what little
remained of his courage, Ranma casually walked down the hallway to
the infirmary room. He peeked in the doorway to see Kodachi putting
on her uniform jacket, but her tie was off and a couple of her blouse's
buttons were undone. He winced at the sight of the dark bruises on
her face. *Maybe this wasn't a good idea after all.* He had had a
vague notion of walking her home, since he felt responsible for the
whole thing.
Kodachi spotted somebody looking in on her through the partly-
open door as she dressed, but she wasn't able to make out who it was
exactly. She quickly stomped over to the door and flung it wide open,
her hand reaching out to grab the pervert who was peeping in on an
innocent maiden such as herself, intent on doing grave bodily harm to
that person. Her eyes immediately went wide when she saw that it was
Ranma, her hand stopping mere inches from grabbing him up by the
cloth of his jacket. She quickly raised her hand to her mouth as she
blushed, embarrassed at her near mistake.
Ranma jumped a bit when Kodachi practically ripped the door off of
its hinges when she flung it open. He started to quickly stammer out
an apology of some sort, a reflexive protest of his innocence almost
being spoken before he managed to swallow it back down. All he did
instead was paste a nervous smile on his face and stand there like an
idiot.
"R-Ranma," said Kodachi, her eyes looking into his eyes with some
confusion. She quickly gave him a proper bow of greeting, her heart
fluttering with her nervousness and other emotions washing over her.
"I-I am happy to see you, Ranma-san." She could see that Ranma was
looking uncomfortable, and she quickly glanced down to make sure
that her blouse was buttoned up sufficiently high. Only the topmost
two buttons were undone, and she breathed a sigh of relief at the
preservation of her modesty, her cheeks blushing slightly as a quick
thought or two went through her head of another nature.
"I-I came to see how you were doing," said Ranma nervously. He
bowed to her quickly, perhaps a little bit lower than Kodachi felt was
necessary between them given her feelings for him, but it warmed her
heart to see his respect for her station in the Empire. "I heard about
your fight with Akane."
"The little witch attacked me," said Kodachi huffily, before quickly
bringing her hand back up to her mouth to laugh nervously. Starting
over again in as sweet and gentle a voice that she had, she said while
demurely looking at Ranma's belt, "I mean, Akane started the fight,
and I defended myself from her. However, I feel that I gave a good
accounting of myself against her. And now that I've taken her full
measure, if she does it again, I'll knock every tooth from her head."
She smiled in an attempt to reassure Ranma of her ability to take care
of herself.
"Uhm, yeah," said Ranma. He started to open his mouth to say
something more, but the words just would not emerge. It was strange
to him, but Kodachi's beaten-up form still looked beautiful to him, an
almost wildness to it that had not been not present in her oh-so-proper
self before. He tried again to speak, the words spilling out in a quick
rush, "Ithoughtifyoudidn'tmindthenIcouldwalkyouhome." Kodachi
blushed across her cheeks once again, her heart filling with warm
feelings for the pigtailed scientist before her.
*He does care about me,* thought Kodachi, a soft sigh of happiness
escaping from between her lips. She lost herself briefly in a fantasy
about her and Ranma, with him as her husband as she greeted him at
the door with proper modesty, as a true lady of nobility would. From
between her lips another soft sigh emerged, as her thoughts quickly
wandered into areas of quite improper actions for an unmarried young
lady of noble birth to think about a young man. She reined in her
thoughts as she gazed at him, but her eyes sparkled with desire. *Oh,
Ranma, I would fight in a thousand battles to be allowed to remain at
your side, and ten thousand more to win your love.*
Ranma shifted his stance nervously. Kodachi was looking at him
in a funny way, a sort of Hearts-and-Flowers look, and he wasn't sure
what to make of it. His memories from his female counterpart, Ranko,
were still only coming in spottily, so he wasn't relying on them yet to
interpret the women in his life. Kodachi seemed to be happy to see
him though, so that made it okay with him. The look that she was
giving him still made him feel nervous though, a warmly soft-eyed
gaze that made her eyes seem to be even bigger than normal. He
cleared his throat nervously, and Kodachi came back to herself from
her brief fantasy.
"I would be honored to have you accompany me home, Ranma,"
said Kodachi softly. Her eyes were downcast as she had been taught
was proper for a young lady of quality, and she stood there with her
arms clasped behind her body, unconsciously straightening and
showing her figure off to stunning effect. Ranma frankly goggled at
the combined result, and he blinked several times nervously as he
gazed at her body being displayed so casually for his viewing pleasure.
Kodachi held the very demure yet casually seductive pose for several
of the longest seconds in Ranma's young life.
"Uhm, yeah," said Ranma, before swallowing down a throat gone
dry. It was the second time that she had summoned up such feelings
of nervousness in him. He moved out of the doorway as Kodachi
gathered her things, and she was back at his side shortly. Her face
beamed with happiness as she looked at him, the few bandages on her
jaw and nose somehow not diminishing her beauty. Ranma felt that to
be strange, wondering if he was secretly becoming attracted to women
who were fighters.
The pair walked down the corridor in silence, Ranma due to his
lack of knowledge about how to act in such a situation, and Kodachi
due to her happiness at simply being with the man that she cared about
so strongly. It was a moment of pure bliss for her, and the pains of her
injuries were a very small price to pay for such a thing, as she now had
Ranma at her side, and it was good and proper in her mind.
*It looks like I won after all, Akane Tendou,* thought Kodachi with
a smug look crossing her bruised face. *Ranma came to see me, not
you, and now he is walking me home. Life is good.* She heaved a
soft sigh of contentment, moving a little closer to Ranma. She thought
about taking his arm, but she did not want to appear to be too forward.
The last thing that she wanted to do was to scare him off by appearing
overeager.
Ranma walked along, feeling the strange tingling that the three
girls: Akane, Nabiki, and Kodachi, instilled in him. He focussed his
mind on other things, such as the mystery that he had discovered in
his lab, and the new problem of dealing with Nabiki Tendou. He was
looking forward to showing her up, but there was also an undeniable
attraction that he was feeling for the middle Tendou daughter. He had
actually been somewhat aroused by her defiance, and he very quickly
changed the course of his thoughts. He focused on the upcoming
match that he was going to have with her instead.
*You won't stand a chance against me, Nabiki,* he thought with a
high level of confidence. *After all, I have within me all of the skills
of an Heir to the Anything-Goes School. If Akane isn't able to take me
now in a fight, then what chance do you have?"
******************************
Nabiki sneezed.
Akane looked over at Nabiki while her sister rubbed lightly at her
nose. "It was sure nice of you to do this for me, Nabiki" she said,
smiling at her older sister. "I hope that you aren't losing too much of
your lunchtime business income because of it. I'll have to make it up
to you somehow."
"Yes, you will, Akane," said Nabiki very coolly, before suddenly
grinning impishly at her little sister. "Don't worry about it. I'll be able
to make up most of it easily enough after classes." She gave Akane a
reassuring look. "The money will still be there a few hours from now.
I'll just have to shake a few different trees to find it."
"Okay, Nabiki," said Akane, returning to her own thoughts. She
contented herself with recalling the fight between herself and Kodachi,
a little smile appearing on her face as she remembered how good it
had felt to lay into Kodachi like she had. *That debutante bitch is
going to have to be carried home in pieces after I get done with her the
next time,* she thought angrily. *No way am I going to let her have
my Ranma. He's mine to fight with.* The thought of losing to Ranma
after fighting her hardest against him brought a blush to her cheeks.
Nabiki's thoughts had also drifted to consideration of the subject of
Ranma Saotome, and she closed her free hand into a tight fist as she
recalled his surprising arrogance in the Dean's office. In her other
hand was her bookbag, and the leather handle squeaked a bit from the
squeezing that she was giving it. *It wasn't wise of you to dismiss me
so casually, Ranma-kun, not at all,* she thought with a smirk. *This
woman is going to show you that I can keep up with anything that you
can dish out. Just you wait.*
******************************
The three catgirls were lounging around the room that Kinnousuke
had appropriated in one of the Academy sublevels for his private
headquarters. Tiger was reclining in a chair, her hat resting on one
knee as she read through the latest issue of 'Imperial Woman,' trying
to see what new advice was being offered for winning the love of that
special man. Her cat-like ears were cocked forward, showing her rapt
attention for what she was reading. To her left, Lynx was quietly
sitting cross-legged on the floor with her eyes closed and her ears
resting flat to her skull, apparently meditating. And, in the back of the
room, the muscular Panther was working out in a pale blue leotard and
green legwarmers, her body covered in a light sheen of perspiration,
and her skintight outfit leaving little doubt as to her high level of
physical fitness.
"I'm hungry," announced Lynx with a sigh, her eyes remaining
closed.
"Kinnousuke-sama will be back shortly," said Tiger, most of her
attention still on her magazine. "When he arrives, then we will eat.
You have to learn better control over your appetites, Lynx. You don't
hear me complaining, do you?" Tiger's stomach suddenly rumbled
with hunger, a loud growl. Lynx opened her eyes and giggled, and
Tiger looked annoyed.
A few minutes later, the door opened and Kinnousuke walked in.
The two seated catgirls sprang up to their feet in an instant, Tiger only
taking a single moment to hide her magazine behind her chair. Her
cat-like ears pricked up with happiness at his arrival, Panther quickly
stopped her exertions and sprinted over to stand with the others.
"Welcome back, Kinnousuke-sama," the three catgirls chorused in
near-perfect harmony. He merely grunted at them absently and sat
down at the table in the room with a look of annoyance. While
Panther went to clean herself up quickly and change back into one of
her normal outfits, the other two young women brought out the lunch
that had been prepared by the Kashuoh Manor's chef and began to
serve him. Kinnousuke simply treated it as his due, his eyes more on
the food than the two beautiful catgirls serving him. And while they
were still serving, Panther returned, her skin a little reddened from the
quick spongebath that she had given herself before dressing.
"I have been thinking about the problem with Nabiki Tendou," said
Kinnousuke, beginning to shovel rice and meat into his face. Tiger
and Lynx sat attentively, waiting for his approval before they began to
eat. He swallowed before speaking again, "And I am very troubled by
the unexpected failures of my chosen agents. If Anji fails me during
his upcoming challenge with Saotome, then I have a plan that will
require you three to assist me with it." He absently noticed the rather
hungry look on Lynx's face and nodded that they could eat.
"We live to serve you, Kinnousuke-sama," said Tiger with a sparkle
of love in her eye, before she began to eat quickly. She paused again
and swallowed after consuming half the rice in her bowl. "But what is
it that you would have us do?"
"Initially, I plan to make my challenge to Nabiki's own organization
more open," said Kinnousuke with an evil light appearing in his eyes.
"The three of you are to begin pressuring her sources and encouraging
her agents to defect. I want to squeeze Nabiki hard until she gives in."
He chuckled at his own cleverness. "Then, when her organization is
crumbled around her, I intend to play my trump card, one that shall
guarantee her loyalty to me as my consort, and then she and I will rule
the Academy from the shadows."
Lynx finished the last of the rice in her bowl and daintily wiped at
her face with a napkin, her expression neutral. To her left, Panther
was now working through her second bowl of rice, as well as seeming
to enjoy the fresh salmon that she was eating with it, but a very faint
glimmering of tears showed at the corner of one of her eyes. Tiger
simply frowned at her rice bowl before she turned her attention back to
her master. The food that she had just eaten was now sitting leaden in
her stomach after hearing her master's plan for Nabiki Tendou.
"As you command, Kinnousuke-sama," said Tiger. She wanted to
cry, but she knew that her master did not like to see tears on the faces
of his playthings. Instead, a cold rage filled her soul, one that she
would someday unleash on the source of her pain, Nabiki Tendou.
Her eyes met Lynx's and Panther's, and the three catgirls shared a
moment of understanding.
******************************
Nodoka arrived at Hanna Miller's and looked over the exterior of
the building. Earth toned paint colored the walls, broken up by fancy
woodwork on the eaves of the roof, and around the windows, that were
painted green. It had the ambiance of a French restaurant, and it was
a very popular place to eat among the trendy. Nodoka had heard that
the service was good, as well as the food.
"Welcome to Hanna Miller's," the maitre d' greeted her when she
came in, a smile on his face as he bowed to her. "Do you have a
reservation?" Beyond him, Nodoka could see that the eating areas
looked quite full.
"Well, I am meeting someone here for lunch," replied Nodoka. "Do
you happen to have a reservation in either the name of Mitsuma or
Saotome?" She waited as the middle-aged man checked through his
list, occupying herself with watching the waitresses efficiently moving
around the restaurant.
"Ah, here it is," said the maitre d' with another smile, looking back
up at Nodoka. "Mitsuma, party of two. Let me summon your waitress
to take you to your table." He caught the eye of an attractive brunette
with a long ponytail of hair and waved her over. She looked to be in
her late teens at the oldest. The girl practically sprinted on her way to
the front, and she bowed in a very perky manner to Nodoka after she
stopped in front of her.
"Good afternoon," said the girl. "I am Yuka Takeuchi, and I will be
your waitress." Nodoka returned the girl's sunny smile. Like the other
young women working in the restaurant as waitresses, Yuka wore a
snug white blouse with a frill of ruffles that ran down the middle of the
front, and she appeared to be extremely well-built for her age. Her
long, chestnut colored hair matched the color of her eyes and was tied
with a red ribbon that was the same color as her uniform dress and the
small bows on each of her short, puffed sleeves. Unlike the other girls,
Yuka wore a pair of tan fingerless gloves that appeared to be weighted
above the wrists, and her feet were shod with red and white athletic
shoes.
Nodoka followed the girl to the table, one of those next to a window
up front, and sat down. She smiled at Yuka when the girl handed her
a menu. *Such a nice, young lady,* Nodoka thought. Yuka bowed
once again before heading off to another of her assigned tables.
Nodoka picked up the menu and was looking it over, trying hard to
distract herself from her sudden nervousness. *This will be such a big
step in my son's life,* she thought with a worried smile as she browsed
through the various dishes available on the menu. *I hope that Ranma
appreciates the delicacy of what I'm about to do for him, but I'm sure
that he will. After all, such a decision is one of the most important
ones that he will ever be involved in. I just have to make sure that I
pick a girl for him that will match all of his temperaments. Ranma
needs a woman who can provide him with a good home, and also be a
good mother for his children.*
While waiting for Otsu Mitsuma to arrive, and also trying to decide
what to order, Nodoka thought a bit about her plans for the rest of the
day. She had a session scheduled with her best friend, Achika Masaki,
for some sword practice, (actually it could more correctly be called one
of their usual duels), and she didn't want to have anything too heavy in
her stomach for it. Achika was a very crafty opponent, possibly the
best kendo fighter that Nodoka had ever faced, and she did not want
anything hindering her fighting movements. She and Achika had
been getting together for such matches three or four times a week since
their own school days, so many years past.
Nodoka briefly found herself remembering the history that Achika
and she had had together, and the other friends and enemies that they
had lost touch with over time. *So many years have gone by,* she
thought, wistful over the days of her past youth. Nodoka was still
amazed sometimes that she and Achika had ever managed to become
as close of friends as they now were. After all, they had been semi-
bitter rivals at one time, mainly due to each of them being equal
contenders for the topmost slot in the Martial Arts Club at Shibaiki
Women's Finishing School. Achika was usually the one who seemed
to emerge the victor in their fights, but the two women had somehow
slowly forged a close friendship where once only a warrior's rivalry
had existed. But they still tested each other's skills on a regular basis.
The training helped them both keep their figures trim, after all.
Despite Nodoka's rivalry with Achika, they had both always backed
each other up when enemies from outside their school had challenged
the strength of their club. She sometimes found herself wondering
whatever happened to some of those fierce, teenaged girls that used to
regularly test her and Achika's combat skills in those wonderful days
of their youth. But Nodoka's regular opponents were the ones that she
still remembered best.
For example, there had been Kensaiko Idomo, the haughty and
nasty girl from Blackhall Academy, who had always worn her long
hair done up in a ponytail. She was a strong opponent with her chosen
weapons, a pair of war fans. However, Nodoka had always enjoyed
humbling the obnoxiously arrogant girl whenever she came around to
pester her. It was a great stress reliever, and it was also a lot of fun.
Kensaiko had always refused to admit that Nodoka was clearly the
superior fighter, and she kept coming to bother her with challenges.
Then there had also been Kimiko Nakakami from Furinkan Military
Academy, perhaps Nodoka's most mutually-disliked rival in martial
arts ability in those days, far more than even she and Achika had ever
been. Her many close-fought duels with Kimiko, their wooden blades
flashing as they both gave their all to best the other, had been glorious.
Kimiko was the one opponent that Nodoka occasionally found herself
missing over the years, and she thought that to be strange, since they
had been about as far apart from being friends as one could imagine.
However, towards the end of their schoolgirl days, their rivalries
with each other had faded away in the face of their oncoming adult
lives. In her thoughts, Nodoka had always imagined that, like herself
and Achika now were, both other girls were now wives and mothers
whose husbands were probably not even aware of their past adventures
as brawling teenagers. Nodoka had certainly never mentioned any of
her own hellraising days to Genma, since she did not want to spoil her
present image as a gracious lady. To tell her husband and son that she
had once run around and fought with a gang of juvenile delinquents as
a teenager was unthinkable. Neither of them would ever understand,
so it was a dark secret that she would take with her to her grave.
Nodoka was so absorbed in the selections available on the menu that
she did not immediately notice the woman who was approaching her
table, led by the waitress, Yuka.
"Saotome-san?" asked Otsu pleasantly.
Nodoka looked up and bowed in greeting without arising from her
seat. A tall woman, with her lustrous black hair worn straight, stood
next to her table, dressed fashionably and carrying a small attach�
case. She smiled pleasantly as Nodoka looked up and returned the
smile.
"Yes, I'm Nodoka Saotome," replied the matriarch of the Saotome
family. "It is an honor to meet you in person, Mitsuma-san." Nodoka
gestured for the new arrival to join her, and the tall, older woman sat
with regal grace. Yuka quietly handed her a menu and bowed before
she left. Otsu set her attach� case on the table.
"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Saotome-san," said Otsu with a
mild frown. "Traffic was more than I was expecting in this region of
the city during this time of day." She flipped open the attach� case
and removed several thick portfolios from within it. When she had all
that she needed, she closed the case and placed it onto the floor under
the table. The portfolios were placed onto one of the empty chairs
where they would not disturb their meal.
"Do not be concerned, Mitsuma-san" said Nodoka pleasantly. "I
have been enjoying the ambiance of the restaurant while I examined
their menu. They have quite a selection." Nodoka flipped through the
pages of the menu for a moment before looking at Otsu. "I confess
that they have so many selections that I never know what to try."
"I am told that the onion soup here is simply the best," said Otsu
with a smile. *This will be easier than I suspected,* thought Otsu
contentedly behind her fake smile. *The Saotome woman is obviously
off-balance by being in a place such as this, one that she must not
normally be able to afford, so manipulating her into a proper decision
should be child's play. Then I can collect my promised bonus and take
a vacation.*
"I was extremely pleased that you called me when you did," said
Nodoka with another smile, looking up from her menu once more. "A
very good friend of mine used your agency in the recent past, and they
found her son an excellent girl that he is now engaged to. I have high
hopes for what you can do for my son."
"I'm sure that one of the three will make a fine match for your boy,
Saotome-san," said Otsu cheerfully. She perused the menu in front of
her with a smile. Since this was all going onto an expense account to
be presented to Soun, she planned trying some of the more expensive
foods on the menu.
Both women finally made their choices and Nodoka caught Yuka's
eye with her own. Nodoka decided to go with a lighter lunch: a bowl
of French onion soup and shaved roast beef served with a roasted
mushroom sauce over wild rice. The attractive brunette made her way
over to their table, her notepad out and a pen in her hand. She smiled
at the two women brightly. "May I take your orders now?" asked
Yuka.
Nodoka and Otsu were making light conversation when their soups
arrived. She picked up her spoon and tasted the thick, brown broth,
and she discovered that Otsu had not led her astray at all. The French
onion soup was very tasty indeed, and Nodoka consumed it with well-
mannered gusto. The shaved roast beef and rice that she had ordered
went down in the same manner. When Nodoka was done with her
food, she dabbed at her lips with the cloth napkin while Otsu finished
her own meal. Nodoka was not long in waiting for that.
"That was simply delicious," said Otsu with a smile after she set her
napkin down on the table. "There is nothing like eating a good meal
before conducting business, I always say."
"I thank you for inviting me to meet you here," said Nodoka with a
gentle smile. "The food here is excellent."
"I'm glad that you enjoyed it," said Otsu, her smile still firmly in
place. She was eager to get her business done, but such could not be
seen from her mannerisms. After the dishes had been cleared from
their table, they relaxed with some green tea. Otsu pulled the three
portfolios nearer to her, and Nodoka's eyes lit up with happiness.
"I can hardly wait to see what you have to show me from those,"
said Nodoka sincerely, an undertone of eagerness in her voice. Each
portfolio only had a code number on the outside, instead of a name.
Nodoka supposed that it was how Otsu's agency kept their records.
"So what did your husband think when you told him about your
meeting today?" said Otsu as she picked up one of the portfolios with a
smile.
"I... have not told him yet," said Nodoka slowly, feeling somewhat
embarrassed. "He and I have discussed the matter of obtaining the
services of a matchmaker several times, but he felt it was too soon for
Ranma. My husband has said that to engage Ranma now to a young
lady would be foolishly premature, as if a mother does not know what
is right and good for her own son." Nodoka's voice had risen a bit in
volume as she related her irritation with what she obviously felt was a
very silly attitude of Genma's, and she quickly lowered it back down as
she continued to speak. "He told me that I may do as I wished, but he
wouldn't participate in it. Men simply have no understanding of how
important a thing this is, so feel free to ask me any questions about my
son or my family."
"I'm sure that we'll find your son a fine bride," said Otsu in an
attempt to reassure Nodoka, as she picked up the first portfolio. "I am
sure that you already know that many of the very finest families in the
Empire are registered with us. When I was researching the Saotome
family, I was very impressed. From what I saw, you seem to have
managed to accumulate a very distinguished history. Your husband's
father even earned the Imperial Star during the War, I saw. That was
quite an accomplishment."
"Genma's father, Colonel Saotome, was a brave and honorable
man," agreed Nodoka, smiling with a hint of sadness. "My husband
took his loss rather hard as a young man though. It happened shortly
before he finished his time at the Imperial Academy, where our son
Ranma is going now, and it changed Genma. Sometimes I think his
father's death, while fighting for the honor of the Empire in Russia
during the Global War, was what might have finally turned Genma
against following the way of the warrior." Nodoka paused and looked
thoughtful for a moment, as if unsure how much to say on this matter
to a stranger.
"That is understandable," said Otsu with false sympathy. "Please go
on."
"My husband was once a great martial artist in his youth, taught by
his own father, and he even spent an entire year of both training and
travelling in China right before the War," said Nodoka, after taking a
sip of her tea. "But when his father died, I think that something died
inside of Genma as well. He decided against following his family's
traditions and becoming a warrior like so many of his ancestors. He
even stopped studying the martial arts entirely, but, as his wife, I can
tell that he still misses it quite a bit. I keep encouraging him to take it
up again for his health, since it is such good exercise for a man of his
age, but he hasn't as of yet. However, I'm sure that I'll wear down his
resistance eventually." Nodoka's smile turned a bit conspiratorial.
"I'm sure that you will," agreed Otsu, remembering how she was
with her own husband when he proved resistant to her wishes.
"My husband is a good man though, and he raised our son to be a
fine scholar," Nodoka said, pride showing in her eyes.
"I'm sure you must be proud of him," said Otsu with some genuine
emotion. "Your son Ranma seems like he is an outstanding, young
man indeed. Earning an invitation to study at the Imperial Academy
is quite an achievement after all."
"Ranma is a credit to his generation," said Nodoka proudly. "As his
mother, I just know that he will do great things for the Empire. I only
hope that I can find him a bride that will be able to stand at his side as
he goes forward to meet that future."
"Well then, on that thought, let us begin to look at some of the fine
young ladies that have been selected for your son," said Otsu, flipping
open the first of the three thick portfolios with a smile. She settled it
before her to use as a reference, and then looked at Nodoka with a
smile.
"The first of them comes from a fine family in the Koga Mountain
region. Her name is Ukyou Kuonji." A palm-sized photograph of a
serious-looking teenaged girl was presented to Nodoka, a head and
shoulders shot. In it, Ukyou was dressed in a traditional yukata with
her hair worn in a single ponytail that was tied with a white ribbon.
"She's a lovely girl," said Nodoka, noting the spirit displayed by the
girl in the picture by the set of her jaw and the no-nonsense look in her
eyes. *Such a one as this does have the clear look of a warrior, at least
in manner,* Nodoka thought approvingly. The girl reminded her of
herself at that age, for some reason. *I am sure that she would bear
strong children to my son and raise them well.* She looked up from
the picture to focus in again on what Otsu was saying about Ukyou.
"Centuries of traditions are represented by the Kuonji Clan, and
many past members have served Emperors ably," said Otsu. She noted
Nodoka nodding approvingly with a sinking feeling in her stomach
and continued on, "They are descended of a proud line of warriors,
and are reputedly one of the last of the true Shinobi Clans still in
existence in the Empire. Her family now takes care of a large Shinto
shrine in the mountains near Koga, one that they have held for
generations. There is even a legend that an Oni is imprisoned in a
cave behind it."
"An Oni?" asked Nodoka with a smile. "In this day and age they
still believe such things exist?"
"According to the Kuonji Shrine's legend, this particular monster's
spirit is held fast by the power of a holy katana blade buried to the hilt
into a stone in a cave behind the shrine, trapping it forever," said Otsu
with a somewhat more genuine smile. "It is said that one of Ukyou's
ancestors defeated the evil creature and bound it with the power of the
blessed weapon almost seven hundred years ago, one that was rumored
to have been created by the swordsmith Arihoshi. Since that time, the
Kuonji Clan has apparently devoted its energies to only two things:
perfecting their shadow warrior arts, and to maintaining the wards
which contain the Oni."
******************************
The trees barely whispered with the light breeze, and the noonday
sun kept the day warm. A single figure slowly maneuvered down the
walkway, lazily sweeping away the dust and stray leaves from the
broad stone path. It was a teenaged girl, dressed in the white and red
robes of a Shinto shrine maiden. Her chestnut-colored hair was pulled
back into a single loose ponytail that fell to just below her shoulders in
the back and was tied with a white ribbon. Behind her a short distance
away, a large shrine building loomed, dominating the background with
a sense of ancientness, and in front of her was a long series of stone
steps that led down to a small mountain lake. It was a tranquil scene
as the insects buzzed in the trees around her.
Ukyou paused in her sweeping and closed her eyes, letting the mild
breeze dry the sheen of perspiration from her forehead. She took a
deep breath and sighed, scratching at her side at a reoccurring itch. In
addition to being hot and uncomfortably heavy, her robes were itching
her again, and she looked forward to removing them and changing
back into her more comfortable boy's clothes for her afternoon martial
arts practice. However, for the present, her mother had insisted that
she stay clothed in the proper garb for a shrine maiden as she did her
chores, in case there were visitors. It was another reason why Ukyou
missed her time in the back mountain regions with her grandfather.
*Mother just doesn't understand,* thought Ukyou disconsolately.
She picked at the material of her robe, frowning. *This isn't me, some
frail and feminine girly-girl. Dressing and acting like a guy is just so
much more comfortable to me, but Mother just won't even try and
understand my feelings.* Ukyou sighed once again, recalling her
mother's numerous and desperate attempts to find her a husband over
the last several months. *Things were just so much simpler when it
was only me and Grandpa, training in the mountains. After all, I don't
need some dumb guy around complicating my life, and all of them are
just a bunch of hormone-driven perverts anyway. Well, except maybe
for one, but he's been too dense to figure out that I'm really a girl, for
all the years that he's known me.*
Opening her hazel-green eyes, Ukyou looked around the temple
grounds with a sudden smile as her thoughts turned to happier things.
Her grandfather had promised that he would come around today to test
her skills. She wanted to show him how hard that she had practiced at
them. It was then that she noticed a sudden silence; the insects had
stopped sounding. Ukyou glanced around, her hand moving to release
a catch on the handle of her broom, readying her weapon from its
place of concealment.
Ukyou's ears heard the faint whisper of cloth against the bark of a
tree a moment before a figure came leaping at her from a high branch.
She dodged away from several shuriken that came streaking at where
she had been standing. The deadly blades buried themselves into the
wood bordering the walkway as her body soared over the head of her
attacker, her robes rustling. Her acrobatic leap landed her ten feet
away from where she had just been standing, facing her assailant. The
only sound upon her landing was the soft clopping of her sandals
against the stone walkway and a final rustling sound from her robes.
Her broom had been transformed into a short naginata in her hands.
"Well done, my young apprentice," said her assailant. She relaxed
as her attacker was revealed to be the wizened figure of a man, dressed
in the traditional black garb of a ninja but without the mask. He was
shorter than she herself was by several centimeters. "Your skills have
grown greater, my boy. I actually had to work a little bit to sneak up
on you. Your mother must be so proud to see how her son has grown
up into such a fine young shadow warrior. Your disguise as a woman
almost fooled even me."
*I see Grandpa hasn't changed a bit,* Ukyou thought with a mental
sigh. *As much as I love him, the senile, old fool just refuses to see
that I'm really a girl.* She had given up trying to correct the old man
as to her gender a long while ago, and she had even taken to binding
her breasts for the last few years of her training to keep from upsetting
him. It was an act that she still retained out of long habit, especially
since she saw how all of the guys at her local school treated any girl,
so she just attended school as a boy. It was much easier for her, even
though it freaked her mother out a lot, but it made Ukyou a little sad
that no guy had penetrated her disguise yet.
However, she was very happy to see the old man.
"Grandfather Kuonji!" Ukyou exclaimed with a smile at the sight of
the familiar figure. "Do you really think that I've gotten better? I've
been practicing everything that you ever taught me." Her face broke
out into an even broader smile.
"I can see that, Boy," the kindly-looking old man agreed with a thin
smile. "But now we will test your combat abilities. Prepare yourself."
"We?" asked Ukyou in surprise. She glanced around as fully half a
dozen ninja warriors seemed to materialize from out of the trees. They
were dressed in the traditional garb of the ninja, only in camouflage
colors. Her eyes narrowed briefly as she quickly studied each of her
new opponents. "Oh, I see." Ukyou's look turned confident.
Ukyou shrugged out of her heavy outer robes and sandals in a few
moments. Her bare feet were not making even a whisper of sound as
she stood in the light underclothes that she had worn under her robes,
her breasts were held down by her tight chest bindings as was her
usual habit. Her build was a bit broad-shouldered and barrel-chested
to be called girlish from her years of martial arts training, and her
close resemblance to an attractive boy was more obvious now without
the female clothes. She fished a pair of light shoes out of a pocket of
her discarded robes and slipped them on. The total time for her quick
wardrobe change was under five seconds.
"Ready," Ukyou called out with a grin. She flipped her ponytail
back over her shoulder to rest between her shoulderblades and took a
firm grip on her weapon.
The six figures came at her in pairs, attempting to flank her and
quickly overwhelm her defenses. Ukyou went into a blur of motion as
she met the first pair at a dead run. Her naginata whirled into proper
position with ease against her attackers' blades, blocking both deadly
strikes with great skill. Her right foot slammed hard across the jaw of
one ninja, the blow spinning him about to receive the haft of her
weapon across his skull a moment later. The shadow warrior went
down hard.
*One,* Ukyou thought to herself.
The first ninja's companion was a female. Like the first, Ukyou did
not recognize this one from her stance or her movements, but she had
a high measure of fighting skill, enough to occupy her for several very
critical moments. Ukyou dueled with the girl, naginata against sword
blade in a rapid-fire exchange of strikes and blocks, even as the four
remaining ninjas raced towards her. Each girl tried to power her way
through her opponent's defenses, but Ukyou's far greater skill quickly
showed.
The female ninja was a fraction of a second too slow on one block,
and Ukyou quickly slashed her across the stomach, twisting her wrists
outwards at the last moment. Dark fluid quickly dampened the heavy
cloth on her opponent's belly. It was a bloody blow, but Ukyou had
pulled it so it was not deep enough to kill. The female ninja fell back,
her sword falling from her hands to clatter loudly upon the stones,
clutching her stomach in pain as her vital fluids leaked from between
her splayed fingers. Ukyou quickly spun around and hit her with a
solid backfist blow, knocking the girl unconscious in an instant. Her
opponent's body fell to the earth and did not move.
*Two,* Ukyou thought, her body just warming up to the movements
of combat. She became even more fluid and swift in her actions.
The third and fourth ninjas both leaped at Ukyou from right angles
to each other, their deadly blades aiming to spill her brains from her
skull. Leaping off the ground to meet them in midair, Ukyou blocked
one with her weapon and the other with her hand. Before any of them
began to fall back to earth, her foot buried itself hard into the gut of
one of them, in a blow that he felt all the way through to his spine.
That ninja warrior went down hard, clutching his stomach helplessly
as he slammed into the ground. The other ninja joined him barely a
moment later from a quick knee strike up into his groin, followed up
by a hard-driving elbow strike up under the jaw as his head came
down in reflex.
*Three and four,* Ukyou thought, a grin on her face now. She
alighted on the ground with the grace of a cat and posed briefly with
the blade of her weapon flashing from the sunlight. She was in her
element now, the intense rush of combat upon her.
The last two warriors didn't throw themselves at her in a mad rush
like the first four had. Instead, they moved to opposite sides and
began to test her defenses, but Ukyou wasn't having any of that. She
swiftly feinted at one with her naginata, and then she leaped at the
other. Her powerful thighs locked around his neck as she fired two
quick punches into his face. Before the one had even begun to fall, she
sprang off his now unconscious body to deliver a spinning roundhouse
kick into the shoulder of the other one. He immediately dropped his
sword as his fingers splayed open in reflex, and Ukyou followed up
with a smashing punch to his jaw. She saw the last ninja's eyes roll
back into his head behind the mask, and he fell to the ground with a
dull thud.
*Five and six,* Ukyou thought triumphantly. She was guessing
that the entire fight had taken less than thirty seconds to do.
An arm suddenly wrapped around her windpipe, and the familiar
sounds of her grandfather's voice breathed into her ear in a serious
tone, "Always be aware of any potential new opponents coming up
from behind you." She briefly struggled against his grip, knowing that
he could snap her neck in an instant if he applied the proper pressure.
For several tense moments, neither of them moved.
Then, as quickly as her grandfather's arm had grasped her around
the throat, it withdrew when he let go of her again a few moments
later. Ukyou whirled to face him with her weapon ready, only to see
his kind face smiling at her. She blushed at falling for his attack so
easily. It was a stupid thing for her to do, and she frowned at her
foolishness.
"Sorry, Grandfather," Ukyou said as she bowed her head to him. "I
let my overconfidence get the better of me. I was arrogant." A ninja
groaned softly behind her.
"That is a dubious privilege of the young," her elderly grandfather
replied sagely. "Even a warrior as highly-skilled in the deadly arts of
our Clan as you are should always remember to watch his back when
alone. If I had been a true enemy, then you would be dead, your neck
broken like a sapling tree. The Kuonji Clan can ill afford to lose such
a promising warrior as yourself to arrogant carelessness." He frowned
at her slightly. "I taught you better than that, Boy."
"Yes, Grandfather," said Ukyou as she bowed her head again. "I
swear upon my Clan's honor that I will not repeat such a mistake. I
will do you and your teachings proud, and I intend to be the finest
shadow warrior that I can."
"You are a dutiful child, Boy," said the elderly man. He clapped her
on the shoulders. "You make an old man proud that he can soon rest
in the earth, leaving the future of our Clan to one such as yourself. I
have given as much of our lore to you as I have been able to pound
into that thick head of yours, Ukyou my boy." He rapped her hard on
her skull. "So don't waste my time by falling for such simple tricks as
that in the future."
"I won't, Grandfather," said Ukyou with a grin, only to earn another
rap on the head from the old man.
"Remember, Boy," said her grandfather. "After I'm gone, you will
be one of the last of the true Shinobi. So many of our kind have fallen
victim to the lure of serving one of the Noble Families, who prize us
only as a child would a shiny toy. They are no longer pure. And too
few of my peers in these mountains passed on what they knew to the
younger ones, and jealously hoarded their lore until it was too late. On
the other hand, I have tried my best to educate you in the true way of
the Shadow Warrior, the Path of Hidden Honor, so do me proud."
"I will, Grandfather," said Ukyou with a serious look. "I will make
our Clan strong once more."
"The deeper Shinobi magics are yours to command, what few that
you have managed to learn so far," said the old man as he gazed at her
face. "I expect you to pass on all that you know to your children, and
to your children's children." His solemn look promptly changed into a
slight grin. "So, when are you going to find a nice girl for yourself
and settle down, Boy?"
Ukyou coughed.
"Uhm," muttered Ukyou. "I'm working on it." She blushed at the
thought of marriage. A year ago, her grandfather had made her study
some scrolls brought back from some Korean village named Sinanju
by one of her ancestors, on the twenty-seven steps to bring a woman to
the heights of sexual ecstasy. Ukyou had tested a few of the steps from
the scrolls on herself, out of curiosity to see if they really did work, and
she had found herself unable to concentrate well enough to progress at
all beyond step six. She strongly suspected that any man who used all
of the twenty-seven listed steps on a woman would reduce even the
most frigid to a quivering, happy, mindless sex slave. Just the thought
of having every step that was on those ancient scrolls used on her by a
vague future husband made her blush even more intensely.
"You're working on it?" asked the old man, sounding somewhat
disappointed. "Boy, I expected to hear far more from you than that."
He shook his head slowly as he stared at the ground. "Why, when I
was your age, I had the women simply flocking to me. There must be
at least a couple of dozen pretty girls your age in the regions around
this village that would love to be your wife. I think I'll speak to your
mother about this."
"NO!" shouted Ukyou, before chuckling nervously. She rubbed at
the back of her head with one hand. "I mean, I'd prefer to do this on
my own. I need to find the right... uh... girl to be with."
"Do like I did," said the old man with a grin. "Just pick some cute,
likely-looking girl that you see and go after her. Your grandmother,
(God bless her soul.), became my wife that way. There isn't a woman
alive that can resist one of us Kuonji men, especially after you use a
few steps from those scrolls of secret techniques that I made you study
on your fifteenth birthday." The old man nudged Ukyou in the ribs
with his elbow and grinned lasciviously up at her. Ukyou's blushing
face somehow grew even brighter.
"Yes, Grandfather," squeaked Ukyou, her cheeks a bright red now.
*I swear that I'm going to die right here of embarrassment if he keeps
talking about this,* she thought fiercely. She found herself hoping for
another fight to take her mind off her thoughts, but none appeared to
be forthcoming to her. So she quickly replaced her shrine maiden's
robe in an attempt to occupy herself.
Her grandfather watched as a few members of the Clan emerged
from the trees to tend to the several fallen warriors. Ukyou moved up
to stand beside him, enjoying the cool breeze from across the valley
that had suddenly sprung up. The old man suddenly looked up as he
sniffed the wind delicately, and then he slowly turned to her with an
enigmatic smile.
"You have been my very finest apprentice, Boy," said Grandfather
Kuonji. "But I can sense something coming for our Clan, looming on
the horizon. I want you to be prepared for it."
"Yes, Grandfather," said Ukyou solemnly. "I promise."
******************************
"This young lady seems like she would make a fine daughter-in-law
to me," said Nodoka with a pleased smile. "Such an illustrious family
background that she comes from. I am deeply honored that you feel
that my son is worthy to marry a daughter of such a Clan." Nodoka
put the picture of Ukyou Kuonji away with a smile. *Ukyou seems to
me like she would make an excellent match for my son.*
*Hmm,* thought Otsu, a little bit surprised at Nodoka's unexpected
reaction. *That wasn't how it was supposed to go here.* She closed
the portfolio and placed it on the bottom of the pile. *I even played up
the warrior aspects of the girl as I was told, and Nodoka seemed even
more pleased with her. I suspect that Tendou-san has grossly misread
this woman, but I will proceed with the plan as he instructed me. I
suppose that he is counting on the face-to-face meeting to torpedo the
matchmaking, rather than doing so at this time.* She picked up the
portfolio that contained Kodachi's information next.
"This next young lady comes from one of the Minor Families of the
Imperial Nobility," said Otsu, noting that Nodoka's eyes had lit up a
little at that one. She passed to Nodoka a palm-sized photograph of
Kodachi. This one showed a smiling Kodachi wearing her best clothes
for the picture, and it was a head and shoulders shot as well. "Her
name is Kodachi Kunou, the only daughter of the Kunou Family, and
she comes with a sizable dowry. While the Saotome line was ennobled
by Imperial decree a century ago in reward for the faithful service that
your husband's family has given to the Empire for many generations,
the Kunou family, being of the Imperial Nobility, actually has Imperial
blood flowing within it from a direct link to the Royal Family some six
centuries ago."
*A daughter of one of the Nobility,* thought Nodoka breathlessly,
gazing at the picture with a smile even greater than the one that she
gave to the one of Ukyou. *Her place in society alone will enable
Ranma to start in a position that would normally take years to get
into.* She paused and contemplated the possibilities. *My only son, a
Lord of the Empire. Of course, he would be expected to take several
mistresses or second wives, and I'm sure that the other two girls would
be thrilled to be ennobled themselves. My son is so manly, he must
have them ALL!*
Nodoka studied the picture more closely. *I recognize her!* she
suddenly realized with surprise, and what she remembered about the
girl in the photo only increased her favor in Nodoka's eyes. *She won
the gold medal in France some months back, at the World Gymnastics
Competition. Such a lovely child, and an obvious athlete as well. She
looks like she will be able to bear many strong children, but there is
also something vaguely familiar about her face. It is just on the edge
of my memory. I wish that I could put my finger on it.* Nodoka
tapped gently at the top of the table with one fingernail as she listened
to Otsu begin to speak about Kodachi.
"Kodachi Kunou is an accomplished athlete in gymnastics and
dance," said Otsu, her smile once more firmly on her face. "She
comes from a background that has taught her to be a gracious lady for
a household. The Kunous have served the Empire for many centuries,
and their landholdings extend throughout the length and the breadth
of the Empire. They are descended from solid warrior stock, and they
are rumored to be raised from birth to respect strength of arms above
all else. However, Kodachi is a gentle child from all accounts that I
have been given, unwilling to cause harm to anyone."
******************************
*I swear that I shall punish Akane Tendou severely for her gross
effrontery when it comes to her attempting to claim Ranma for her
own property!* thought Kodachi fiercely. She walked along slowly at
his side, and he was carrying her bookbag; his own he had apparently
left in his lab space, or so he had told her when she asked. She calmed
herself and smiled as she looked at Ranma once again, another soft
sigh escaping her lips. *You need a loving woman to care for your
every need, Ranma, not some barbaric savage like that little hussy,
Akane.* A brief blush crossed her cheeks as she felt another surge of
desire for him when she stepped closer, and her thoughts turned to
wondering about some of Ranma's 'needs.'
"Are you sure that you're feeling well enough to walk, Kodachi?"
asked Ranma solicitously. "I mean, you took a couple of pretty bad
hits from Akane."
"I can walk just fine, Ranma," said Kodachi a little stiffly, feeling
her pride warring with her desires to have him carry her home, but her
family's traditions of martial strength was affecting her mood as it
never had before. "My injuries from that altercation with Akane
Tendou are not causing me any difficulty." After she finished saying
that, she stumbled a bit and fell against Ranma. His arms went to hold
her up, grabbing her at the waist, and a warm quiver went through her
at his touch upon her body.
*Ohh,* thought Kodachi dreamily. She leaned against Ranma, her
head angled down away from his view as a bright blush heated her
face. It felt so good to her for him to simply be holding her that she
could hardly believe it. She heard her own blood thundering in her
ears as her head lay pressed against Ranma's chest. She could hear his
heart beating, even over the sound of her own pulse in her ears, his
heart thudding strongly in his chest. After a mere moment, she felt his
whole body stiffen up at her nearness, and he immediately dropped his
hands from her waist where he had caught her and prevented her from
falling.
Ranma swallowed and kept his eyes locked straight ahead of him.
His mind had gone strangely blank, and he felt himself to be frozen in
place. His body was giving him all sorts of weird signals that he had
never felt before. To deal with it, he just let himself react with his
natural impulses, since that seemed to be the logical thing to do. He
quickly backed away from Kodachi.
"S-sorry," said Ranma nervously, regaining his voice when he was a
few feet away from her. "I was just trying to keep you from falling."
"What?" blurted out Kodachi. She cocked her head slightly to one
side, very puzzled by his reaction to her being close to him. "It's all
right, Ranma. Thank you for helping me. I guess maybe my legs are
still a little unsteady." She extended one leg and looked it over, and
Ranma's eyes tracked down by reflex. She noticed his attentions out of
the edge of her eyesight and smiled. She lowered that leg and raised
the other, appearing to be looking it over for injuries. She saw Ranma
swallow once more, and he seemed to be sweating a little.
"We should get you home then," said Ranma quickly. He broke eye
contact with her legs and turned around. He held her bookbag behind
his back and began rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, a
tuneless whistle coming from his mouth.
"Home isn't far," said Kodachi, starting out once again. Ranma
quietly followed her. She noticed that he continued to remain wary of
getting near her, and a delicate frown appeared on her lips. *Does he
find me unattractive?* she thought with a strong note of worry. *Am I
being too forward with him? Perhaps I should take it a little slower
with him.* Kodachi nodded as she thought about it. *Yes, I will let
Akane Tendou scare him away from her with her forwardness, the
brutish, little thug. I, on the other hand, shall play the gracious lady
and win his heart with gentleness. After all, that little barbarian is no
match for me in such things, so Ranma is sure to be mine!* A smile
of victory crossed her lips.
Unaware of Kodachi's thoughts towards him, Ranma walked along
a pace behind her on her right flank. She would have been extremely
disappointed to learn that his thoughts had already shifted from her to
his appointment with Nabiki. *I wish I could figure out what Nabiki's
game is,* he thought, studying the ground in front of his feet as he
walked. *I guess I'll just go easy on her until I can figure out what
she's up to. After all, it's not like her martial arts skills will be any
threat to me. I dealt with Akane pretty well, and I doubt that Nabiki
will be as tough.*
Kodachi and Ranma eventually arrived at the main exterior gate of
the Kunou Mansion after another several minutes of walking. At the
sight of the immense stone and wood edifice atop the hill, Ranma
found himself comparing it with the memories from his counterpart's
life and finding the present reality's version to be even more amazing
and awe-inspiring in scope and size. The mansion's surrounding
grounds, for example, easily constituted several city blocks in both
directions, an almost priceless amount of real estate for the region in
which it lay.
*Impressive,* was Ranma's first thought, as he was studying the
tall, forbidding-looking stone walls that surrounded the grounds as he
walked alongside Kodachi. Ranma dropped back a pace as she walked
up to a smaller side gate and removed a magnetic access card from her
bag, before quickly sliding it through a reader. The light atop the unit
turned green quickly and the door unlocked with a faint buzz and a
click. Kodachi opened the heavy metal gate with a smile back in his
direction.
"Come on, Ranma," said Kodachi, beckoning him to follow her as
she held the small gate open. "Let me show you where I live."
With a bemused look, Ranma followed her through the portal, onto
the spacious grounds of the Kunou Mansion. On the other side of the
gate was a short tunnel that led to a small flight of stairs. Ranma just
followed along behind Kodachi as they both climbed the stairs that
finally emerged in a garden area with a koi pond. A Zen rock garden
stood off to one side, the patterns in the gravel and the placement of
the stones a rather soothing thing for him to behold. He was tracing
out the patterns of the gravel when he felt a tugging on his sleeve.
"Come on, Ranma," implored Kodachi, a smile on her face. Ranma
ignored the tingle that briefly raced up his arm at the slight contact of
her hand against his as she let go of his sleeve. He smiled at the koi
pond, extremely grateful that he had nothing at all to fear from all of
that cold water, especially since volumes of it did not seem to seek him
out in this life like it did his counterpart. With a swift shrug of his
shoulders, he followed her.
Kodachi kept up a running description of the places that she took
him to see around the mansion area: the tennis courts and enormous
swimming pool in the backyard region; the outdoor training area for
the household, neatly arranged with wooden practice forms and other
such accessories; the flower garden, filled with such a wide variety of
botanical splendor that even Ranma found himself hard-pressed to
remember the names and scientific designations to the plants neatly
arranged and pruned; and finally, the garage area, filled with a large
assortment of vehicles, including a collection of motorcycles of all
styles, both classic and modern.
Ranma admired the shining chrome and painted steel with wonder
visible in his eyes, and Kodachi smiled to see his interest. She quietly
watched him running a hand gently along the curves of one of the
motorcycles, one of her father's latest acquisitions, a Mendou Motors
Katana Class 9000. Her father had once told her in one of his more
candid moments that it was reputed to be one of the fastest motorcycles
in current production. Kodachi smiled gently as she thought about the
many hours that the Kunou family patriarch spent polishing his small
collection of treasures, and it appeared that Ranma might share a little
of that interest. That pleased her a great deal, since getting her father
to like the pigtailed boy was part of her ultimate plan to win Ranma's
heart for herself.
"They're magnificent," said Ranma in a soft tone. Despite their
glaring inefficiencies as a method of transport, Ranma had long held a
love for vehicles using an internal combustion engine, especially
motorcycles.
"They're my father's," said Kodachi with a smile. She saw Ranma
turn to look at her with an odd smile, as if hearing something that did
not quite compute to him.
"Princip... I mean, Lord Kunou rides them?" asked Ranma with a
great deal of surprise. He turned to look at the row of both classic and
modern motorcycles and whistled. *There must be over two dozen
bikes here,* he thought with amazement. The thought of Kodachi's
father on one of them simply wasn't meshing with his preconceptions
about the man, based on his memories of the Hawaiian-obsessed man
from his counterpart's life. *I guess I should watch out for pre-judging
others, based on what I think I know about them.*
"Oh yes," said Kodachi brightly in answer to his question. "Father
has an absolute mania for motorcycles and the mystique surrounding
them. Some of the household servants have confessed to me that he
was a bit of a rough sort when he was a teenager." Kodachi pointed at
the wall, and Ranma turned to see a black-and-white photograph in a
frame there. "That was my father back then. He's the one in the
middle."
Ranma peered closely at the old and faded picture and saw in it
several rather disreputable-looking young men, a few of them armed
with various martial arts weapons, all casually posing around one
young man in particular. The specific young tough that Kodachi was
pointing out looked a little bit like Tatewaki, Ranma noticed. In the
weathered picture, the then-young Lord Kunou was wearing a dark
leather jacket and casually held a bokken in one hand, resting the
other end on his shoulder, as he mugged for the camera. His eyes
were hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses. Ranma was curious as
to who the other teenagers were, but water damage or something had
blurred all of the forms in it, except for that of Kodachi's father.
"I've been told by several of the older servants that my father was
quite an... interesting sort in his younger days," said Kodachi, with a
smile evident in the sound of her voice. "But I am told that he calmed
down a lot after Mother was engaged to him. However, I look at them
now and occasionally wonder what they were like when they were our
age. I cannot ever see Father acting as the roughcut young hellraiser
that the older servants have described him as being like in his youth."
Kodachi walked up beside Ranma as he stared into the photograph
hung on the wall. "Other than Mother, motorcycles are the other
major love of his life. I would learn to ride myself, but she does not
think it is very ladylike."
"Miss Kunou," said a voice behind them. Ranma almost levitated
into the air from his surprise at recognizing the voice that had spoken
up. He turned to see Sasuke standing there, dressed in a dark pair of
pants and a gray shirt, rubbing his hands on a dirty cloth. Oil stains
were spattered on his clothes. He stepped forward and gave Ranma a
mildly suspicious look before turning to smile at Kodachi. His tone
with her was gentle and very respectful. "My Lady, why aren't you in
school?"
"Uh, well," said Kodachi, looking uncertain. Sasuke took a closer
look at Kodachi in the dim light and blinked in surprise.
"By the Emperor!" exclaimed Sasuke as he saw the mussed state of
her clothes and the several small bandages arrayed on her face and
nose. "What happened to you, Milady? It looks like you were in some
sort of accident or a fight. You weren't fighting again, were you? Has
your mother seen you yet?" The little man began wringing his hands
and looking very worried as he noticed that she looked embarrassed.
"It was a fight then. The Mistress will be absolutely frantic to see you
like this. You know how she feels about fighting."
"I know, Sasuke," said Kodachi with a pained smile. Kodachi well
remembered the long lecture that had greeted her on her return home
after her first fight with Asuka the White Lily. Her mother had been
absolutely horrified to see her little girl in the shape that she had been
in after that first combat. She had gone on for over an hour on how a
true noble lady does not brawl in the streets like a commoner, and also
how "when she had been Kodachi's age, she had never engaged in
such activities." It was an experience with her mother that Kodachi
was not looking forward to repeating.
"I ran into a little trouble today," said Kodachi quietly. "There is no
need to trouble yourself over it."
"T-trouble myself?" choked out Sasuke, looking like she had just
kicked him right in his manhood. "Milady, as a loyal ninja in service
to the House of Kunou, it is my sacred duty! Any threat to you must
be dealt with immediately and without mercy. Towards that end, I
shall assemble a squad of our finest shadow warriors, as soon as you
inform me of the perpetrator of this crime against your most noble
personage!"
"Take it easy, buddy," said Ranma suddenly, watching the little man
working himself into a mild frenzy. "Kodachi's all right. She was just
a bit beaten up in a fight, but she gave as good as she got."
*Ranma,* sighed Kodachi, sending him a loving look as she felt a
new surge of purpose filling her. *I must strive to be worthy of him by
crushing Akane Tendou utterly in my next combat with her.*
"Who are you to dictate to me how I should act in the course of my
duties, Sir?" asked Sasuke stiffly. He eyed the pigtailed scholar with
obvious distaste for a moment, before he turned to Kodachi. "Milady,
who is this rude person with you?"
"This is Ranma Saotome," said Kodachi, amused at Sasuke's little
antics. "He is my... friend." Her look suddenly turned cross. "I order
you to treat him with respect. I expect that you will be seeing much
more of him around the grounds in the future."
"B-but, what of Master Tatewaki?" asked Sasuke nervously, his eyes
twitching between Kodachi and Ranma. "He won't like this."
"What my dear brother thinks is no concern of mine, dear Sasuke,"
said Kodachi, a touch of irritation in her voice. "I am almost a grown
woman, and I can be friends with a boy if I so desire."
"Yes, Milady," said Sasuke, bowing low to her. "My apologies if I
have given offense."
"Come along, Ranma," said Kodachi, entwining her arm with his.
"I suppose that I could use your support when I go to speak with my
mother." With that, the two of them walked off, Ranma caught up in a
new wave of tingling from Kodachi's nearness, and Kodachi clamping
down on her renewed desires for the pigtailed boy through sheer force
of will.
"So you have ninjas running about on the grounds?" asked Ranma
with a hint of nervousness. He realized that, other than Sasuke, he
had not seen a single servant walking about, not even a gardener for
the expansive gardens.
"Oh, yes," breathed Kodachi, smiling. "All of the household staff
are from a small Ninja Clan that has served under the Kunou Family
for generations, the Makimachi Clan. Sasuke is the sole exception to
this, for reasons that my father has never chosen to explain. Mother
has even lately been pressuring me to take on my own personal ninja
guardian."
"Really?" asked Ranma, surprised. He looked around casually.
"Well, many in the nobility have them," said Kodachi cheerfully.
"It is a sort of status symbol, but I am quite capable of defending
myself. I look on that as a point of pride." Her eyes sought out his
own, and her expression turned unreadable. "You do not think a
woman who can fight is unfeminine, do you? Too... butch?"
"Uhm, well, no, of course not!" stammered Ranma. He laced his
fingers behind his head and chuckled softly. "I would never call a girl
who can fight 'butch.'" He was rewarded with a gentle smile from
Kodachi, her eyes twinkling a little.
"Good," said Kodachi, very obviously pleased. "I am gladdened that
my fighting ability does not repel you. I would like to be your friend."
She turned her face from his, blushing slightly. "I have not really had
any friends before I met you." The young noblewoman turned back
and gave him another gentle look that left Ranma confused as to what
to say or do, so he remained quiet. They continued on their way into
the manor house.
*Looks like another thing to be aware of that's different,* mused
Ranma with a smile. *The Kunous with a whole Ninja Clan at their
disposal.*
A few minutes later, Ranma was within the halls of Kunou Manor,
removing his shoes at the rear door and slipping on one of the many
pairs of house slippers available. He forced himself to look away from
admiring Kodachi's trim form once again as she slipped off her school
shoes and put on a pair of house slippers as well. He was apparently
getting used to her touch upon him, but the smell of her delicate
perfume was still mildly intoxicating. It kept filling his mind with
strong desires for her, so he kept a very tight rein on his feelings
because of it.
"Dachi-chan!" came a female voice calling out to them. Kodachi
winced a little and turned to face the oncoming figure of her mother as
she swept into the room. Ranma took the opportunity to move a little
bit aside from Kodachi as she greeted her mother with a wave and an
abashed smile.
"Hello, Mother," said Kodachi, but the very attractive woman had
already turned from her and rounded on Ranma. She was more than a
little surprised to hear not a single comment from her mother on her
beaten-up appearance, but it seemed that her showing up with a boy in
tow was an even more interesting thing for her. She hoped that her
mother would not embarrass her, but that hope died quickly.
"Is this your new lover, Dachi-chan?" asked her mother brightly, as
she examined Ranma from up close. "My, he does seem to be a very
fine specimen of a young stud. I approve of your taste."
Ranma blinked and started to look extremely nervous. Such intense
scrutiny as he was now undergoing made him feel like a horse about to
be purchased. He even half-expected her to open his mouth and check
his teeth, but Kensaiko never actually touched him. Instead, he put up
with feeling as if he was being undressed by her eyes and his
manliness judged.
"Mo-ther," said Kodachi, drawing out the word a little bit in her
embarrassed exasperation with her parent's antics. "Ranma is not my
lover. How many times do I have to tell you that?"
"Well, why not, dear?" said Kensaiko with a smile. She looked
Ranma in the eyes and examined his face. "Such a handsome boy. I
imagine that you have to fend off the young ladies with a stick, young
man."
Ranma started to sweat a bit, and his mind was depressingly blank.
He was finding Kodachi's mother to be a bit overwhelming to his
sensibilities.
"She's not normally like this," said Kodachi softly, as she sidled a
bit closer to Ranma. She gave her mother a scathing look, as only a
daughter can give to her mother. Her voice had a note of annoyance in
it as she spoke through gritted teeth. "I think she is only doing it to try
and embarrass me."
"I-it is an honor to meet you, Kunou-sama," said Ranma, grateful to
finally get some words out of his mouth. He bowed to Lady Kunou
very deeply. "I only meant to escort your daughter home, since she
was injured fighting... uh..." He looked helplessly at Kodachi, but her
eyes had gone wide.
"Fighting?" asked Kensaiko, a moment before she gave Kodachi's
bandaged face her full attention, and her steel-gray eyes took it all in
with a glance. Her tone turned very serious. "Kodachi Kunou, have
you been fighting again?"
"Uh, maybe I should be going," Ranma ventured to say. He was
afraid to find out what Lady Kunou would do if she learned that her
daughter had been fighting over him. When no one replied to him, he
found that he could not bring himself to move. To do otherwise would
be to offer possible insult, so he remained at his position and listened
to the uncomfortable conversation.
"It wasn't anything that I could not deal with on my own, Mother,"
said Kodachi, shuffling her feet a little bit as she refused to meet her
mother's gaze.
*So much like I was at that age,* thought Kensaiko with an internal
grimace. She looked at Kodachi and found herself remembering some
of the times when she herself had come dragging back home to face
her own mother's stern reaction at seeing her daughter in such shape.
It was only the knowledge that her opponent was injured almost as
badly as her own bruised self that had made it palatable to her. She
pulled a fan out of her yukata and waved it absently in front of her face
as she considered Kodachi's injuries, and also the expression on her
daughter's face that was so much like her own had been in the same
situation. *I wonder who she was fighting?* She sighed softly.
"Thank you for escorting my daughter home, young man," said
Kensaiko, turning to face him. "I presume that your name is Ranma
Saotome, he who she has spoken of at the dinner table?" She saw
Ranma startle a bit at that question.
"Yes, Lady Kunou," said Ranma nervously. "I mean, my name is
Ranma Saotome. I am happy to be of service." Ranma bowed once
more to hide his growing uncertainty.
"You will of course have dinner with my family one night..." she
said solemnly. It was not phrased as a question, but as a command. "I
can tell that my daughter favors you, and I find it... good to see my
little girl spending some time with a responsible, young man." Ranma
glanced at Kodachi out of the corner of his eyes and bowed once more.
"Yes, Milady," said Ranma. "Whenever you desire. I am at your
command."
"You may go, Saotome-san," said Kensaiko, gesturing with her fan.
"I wish to speak some with my daughter. Again, you have my thanks
for escorting her home. You appear to me to be a most honorable
gentleman." She favored him with a smile.
Ranma practically bolted from the house after slipping his shoes
back on. The two Kunou women watched him run across the grounds
with differing expressions. Kodachi had a slightly amazed look on her
face, and her mother wore an amused expression. Kensaiko raised one
of her eyebrows slightly when she saw Ranma run up the wall in one
corner, his feet bouncing from one side to the other as he ascended,
before finally vaulting over it, one hand poised on the top as he swung
his legs over. A moment later, he was gone.
"Such an interesting, young man," mused Kodachi's mother. "He
does not strike me as a 'despoiler of an innocent virgin,' as I believe
that your older brother accused him of being."
"Ranma is every bit a true gentleman," said Kodachi with certainty.
She looked her mother squarely in the face, a defiant fire burning in
her eyes.
*So much like me at that age,* Kensaiko thought once again. She
had tried her best to raise Kodachi up to be a very quiet and shy girl,
representing what she saw as being best in noble womanhood, hoping
that her own little girl could avoid the life that she had lived. And yet
somehow, that delicate flower of femininity that she had worked so
hard to cultivate had very recently grown thorns, but Kensaiko could
not bring herself to be truly angry with Kodachi. As if from out of
nowhere, for the last several weeks she had seen the warrior's fire
begin burning inside of Kodachi, the same that had once burned so
strongly in her own heart at that age. She had thought at first that it
was only due to a new boy in her life, but it seemed to be more. She
fanned her face slowly, pondering the many changes in her once very
retiring daughter.
******************************
*Such a fine, young lady for my Ranma, if perhaps a little bit quiet
from your description of her,* thought Nodoka solemnly as she gazed
at the small picture of Kodachi. *If Ranma does not find the young
ninja girl Ukyou to his liking, as I hope that he will, then perhaps this
one will be more appealing to him.*
"But now we come to the finest of the lot, in my humble opinion,"
said Otsu with her usual smile, perhaps a little more broad than the
previous ones. She flipped open the last remaining portfolio and
handed a color picture to Nodoka. Nodoka took the photograph with a
sense of anticipation.
*The finest of the lot?* wondered Nodoka with amazement. After
listening to the impressive qualities of the first two, she was practically
ready to engage Ranma to this girl on the spot without even hearing
anything further. *If Mitsuma-san favors this one, then how could I
think to do otherwise?*
"The next family is one that is currently in high favor among the
Imperial Court," said Otsu with a smile. "The Tendou family has
three daughters, but the middle daughter is the one that I present to
you now, a descendant of a very proud military history. The family
has served with notable distinction within the Security Directorate for
almost two centuries." Otsu gently tapped her finger on the photo in
Nodoka's hand. "Her name is Nabiki Tendou."
"She looks like an attractive and intelligent girl," said Nodoka with
definite approval in her voice as she looked over the photograph of
Nabiki, dressed in her Imperial Academy Security cadet uniform.
Nodoka studied the face of her third prospective daughter-in-law, and
her initial reaction was that she seemed like she would be a very fine
addition to the Saotome family register. The middle Tendou daughter
managed to convey an air of grace, intelligence, and feminine strength
as she smiled brightly into the camera. Nodoka was also strongly
convinced that she had seen this girl somewhere before. Much like
when she had looked at Kodachi's picture, there was something in the
eyes that was strangely familiar.
"Nabiki scored second only to your son on the Imperial Academy
entrance examinations," said Otsu, a fact that even impressed herself.
"She is currently attending the Tokyo Imperial Academy, the same as
your son is, only Nabiki is in the Officer's Training Program for the
Security Directorate. Since her admittance, Nabiki has quite regularly
received the highest marks across the board from all of her instructors.
>From all accounts, she is a charming young lady, and I am sure that
she would be able to give you many fine grandchildren."
Nodoka smiled with great interest.
******************************
The walk home with Akane was a quiet one for Nabiki. She spent
most of her time thinking about the events of the day since she had
awoken this morning. *In a few hours I have my first sparring match
with Ranma-kun,* she mused. Instead of sounding unpleasant to her,
there was a feeling of almost breathless anticipation that accompanied
that thought, and Nabiki found herself studying the ground in front of
herself casually. *I'm actually looking forward to the challenge a great
deal. How very unlike me.* Yet for some reason, the oddly pleasant
feeling was not going away. She had been challenged, and as the new,
even though unofficial, Heir to the Anything-Goes School on this
Earth, she felt strongly that that challenge must be answered by her.
"What'cha thinking about, Nabiki?" asked Akane quite suddenly,
intruding upon her older sister's train of thought.
"Oh, nothing much," said Nabiki. She absently closed her hand
into a fist, studying the calluses gained from her Academy combat
training that were on it. "I was just thinking about a private affair that
I must deal with later today."
"An affair?" said Akane, her brow furrowing a little bit. "It almost
sounds like a date." She grinned at her older sister and was surprised
to see a brief blush cross Nabiki's cheeks before her usual cool look
was restored.
"No, not a date," said Nabiki calmly. "Just a demonstration of sorts.
There is an individual who needs to be taken down a peg or two in
arrogance, and I feel that I'm ideally suited to do it." She smiled a
wolflike smile. "I'm actually rather looking forward to it, and I was
just savoring the anticipation." Nabiki lowered her fist to her side and
relaxed it back open.
"All I'm looking forward to is a long soak in the furo," said Akane
with a tired grin. "That fight with Kodachi was quite a workout."
"I noticed that," said Nabiki, a rather smug look briefly crossing her
features. *I wonder how long it would have taken me to win against
Kodachi?* The thought of losing never crossed her mind.
"She's a strong opponent," admitted Akane with a smile. "I really
enjoyed the fight with her." Nabiki looked at her younger sister with a
neutral expression.
*The sooner I get you away from Ranma, the better, little sister,*
Nabiki thought. *I'm a much better match for him than you are, and
that goes double now that he and I have gone through the experiences
that we have. We have a... connection of sorts now, a common bond
between us. It will be interesting to see how our skills measure up
against each other.*
The couple continued walking towards home in silence.
******************************
"Three young ladies to choose from for my son already," said
Nodoka with a smile. "A mother should always have such problems."
Otsu nodded as she said, "I am pleased that I was able to meet you
today and go over the candidates."
"As am I," agreed Nodoka with a bright smile. "I can hardly wait to
show him the choices available to him for his new bride. I plan to do
it after dinner tonight."
"You will not make the choice yourself?" asked Otsu, feeling a
small amount of panic arising. "I thought that you, and possibly your
husband, would be making the final selection." She began putting
away the three portfolios, leaving Nodoka with only the pictures that
she had been given.
"Ranma will be allowed to make the final choice himself," replied
Nodoka. "But I will want to meet them all in person myself to judge
their fitness to marry my son. However, based on what I have seen
and heard of these three candidates so far, any one of them would be
acceptable to me for my future daughter-in-law. I suppose I could
even engage him to them all, and then let him choose one for himself."
Nodoka briefly chuckled at her little joke while Otsu raised a single
eyebrow, and then she looked at Otsu with a serious expression. "I do
want my son to marry for love though, Mitsuma-san. Genma and I
were an arranged marriage in our youth, but we love each other too."
"Well, my personal recommendation is the Tendou girl," said Otsu
mildly as she closed up her attach� case. "Based on what I now know
of you and your son from talking with you, I feel that Nabiki would be
the best choice. I hope that you will keep Chrysanthemum in mind
when it comes time to plan the wedding." Otsu resumed her smile as
Nodoka put the pictures of the three girls away into her purse.
"Oh, I shall," said Nodoka. "I know, whichever girl he chooses,
that Ranma will make the right choice."
*I hope so,* thought Otsu with an internal grimace. *I sincerely
hope so.*
******************************
As he tried to leave the Kunou mansion, Kodachi remembered that
Ranma had to go back to the Academy. Unable to think of him being
late because of her, she insisted that the family car drive him back. He
fought the suggestion until her mother announced that he would ride
in the car or her family's hospitality would be dishonored. Because of
this, he found himself alone in the changing room a full half-hour
before his match with Nabiki Tendou.
Ranma was surprised to find an unexpected present inside his
locked locker when he first opened it: a large folded-up shopping bag
resting within. He still had not yet opened it up, and the humble
package had mocked him silently as he undressed. However, while he
stood there, dressed only in his boxer shorts and socks, his curiosity
could no longer be denied. He set down the T-shirt that he had been
about to put on and pulled the bag out from his locker. It was a plain
brown in color, of a type that could have come from any one of ten
thousand different shops in Tokyo.
*I wonder where this came from?* he thought as he unfolded the
bag open. Inside it were several soft objects wrapped in tissue. He
reached in, and his questing fingers pulled out a disturbingly familiar
item from among one such tissue-wrapped bundle, a silk Chinese-style
shirt in red with white cuffs. A small piece of paper fell from within
the shirt to softly land on the floor at his feet. Ranma did not move for
several moments, his eyes studying the shirt with an oddly fascinated
look in them. After a moment, his eyes shifted to look down at the
small innocent-looking piece of paper, and he bent down to pick it up.
The kanji was precisely scripted in a feminine style, and he read the
short message silently, *Wear these for our first match - Nabiki.* He
held the small piece of paper in his hands with disbelief writ large in
his eyes, but a moment later his gaze quickly shifted to the red silk
shirt held in his other hand. A mirthless smile slowly came across his
face, and he mentally slapped himself for not putting things together
even sooner and figuring out who his unexpected visitor was already.
*So it was you, eh, Nabiki?* he thought, with that same, odd smile
still on his face. *This will make it interesting, after all.* His few
retained memories of that life, where it was Nabiki who was Heir to
the Anything-Goes School, instead of himself, were not as clear to him
as the imprinted ones from his first test. However, he suspected that
he was in for a true challenge of his newly-gained martial arts skills.
His smile grew broader.
A short time later, Ranma emerged from the locker room, dressed
in an outfit that felt like a second skin upon him, not something that
he wore for the very first time: a red, Chinese-style silk shirt with
wooden ties holding the front together and broad white cuffs folded
back, a pair of black gi pants with the cuffs tied tightly at the ankles, a
thin black belt around his waist, and a pair of black slippers on his
feet. The feel of the clothes on his body was both new and all-too-
familiar to him at the same time. However, it felt oddly 'right' to be
dressed this way, and that feeling brought a hint of genuine
amusement to his eyes.
Nabiki looked up when Ranma walked around the corner of the
building, and she had a smile on her face that was very similar to the
one he wore. *It looks like I figured correctly,* she thought, noting
how easily he moved in his new clothes. Ranma now looked identical
to the image she had from her new memories, and her expression
changed to a pleased smirk at the sight. *Red suits him,* she finally
decided, nodding her head to him for a moment as she continued to
stretch out her long legs in front of herself and limber up. When her
gaze briefly locked with Ranma's, she noted the light of battle that
appeared in his eyes upon sight of her, one she was sure was also
within her own.
A few seconds before meeting Nabiki's gaze, Ranma had eyed her
sparring outfit with a smirk, showing not a whit of surprise on his
face, as if he had simply confirmed something for himself that he had
already known to be true. Her outfit was nearly identical to his own,
except for her wearing a light blue shirt instead of a red one like he
was. He had met her gaze with a cocky look on his face, still confident
in himself. Their eyes had locked for a moment, and he took note of
the confident look she wore as well. The desire to test himself against
her grew a little stronger, and from the look on her face, he was sure
that she felt similar desires. A breeze arose briefly, blowing a few
scattered leaves and cherry blossoms between them.
Then the moment was gone, and their gazes broke from each other.
Nabiki's eyes slowly moved up and down his body, studying him in an
appraising fashion, as Ranma shook his head briefly to clear it. What
had been the most jarring thing to him in that moment though was the
incredible feeling of rightness at being in her presence, being dressed
as he was, and seeing her dressed as she was.
*Besides,* Ranma thought, studying the Chinese-style clothed girl,
*she actually looks pretty cute dressed like that.* After he thought
that, Ranma shook his head worriedly once again and tried hard to put
a neutral expression onto his face.
"Looking pretty good, Ranma-kun," said Nabiki with very genuine
appreciation when she finally lifted her gaze back up to look him in
the eyes, catching Ranma right in the middle of admiring her and
causing him to look uncertain once again. Feeling playful, she sat
back, resting her hands palms-down on the ground behind her, the
artful pose emphasizing the swell of her breasts beneath the silken
shirt and bringing a large lump to Ranma's throat. Apparently quite
satisfied with the effect that she had had on him from the look on his
face, Nabiki smirked at him very confidently and seductively asked,
"So, are you ready to test your might against me today?"
Before Ranma could make any sort of response to that, she shifted
her position forward, her hands reaching down her legs to grasp both
slippered feet as she lowered her head down, another intentionally
artful pose on her part that earned her a faint sort of groaning sound
from the pigtailed teen. As Nabiki went back to stretching out her leg
muscles some more, she heard Ranma settle himself nearby with some
soft grumbles. His proximity to her was once again evoking the same
mildly pleasant tingling within her that it had always done before, but
they were now given a new depth, colored by her new awareness of
him as a rival in combat skill. Nabiki found herself grinning, and her
sense of anticipation for the match was increasing.
"Just be ready to lose, Nabiki," grumbled Ranma, a little sullenly, as
he began to do his own stretching routine. He sat a little ways away
from Nabiki to give them both plenty of room to warm up, and he tried
to ignore her presence as best as he was able to at the time, focussing
all of his mental faculties on his own body and preparing himself for
the match. However, his eyes kept drifting back to look at Nabiki
during random moments, and he found himself admiring the clean
lines of her body. He was just studying her for possible weaknesses, or
at least that was what he kept telling himself that he was doing. And,
much as it had been before his match with Akane, Ranma felt his
pulse quickening, his breathing deepening, and the same competitive
fire that had filled his soul then began burning within him once more.
It helped him focus his thoughts on his current purpose for being, to
fight with all of his skill, all of his strength.
Nabiki had her legs spread wide apart, straining slightly against the
resistance of the muscles in her inner thighs as she found her eyes
once again drawn to Ranma, flustering her concentration a little bit.
Other than her confrontation with him in the Dean's office, this was
the first time that she had seen him since her experiences the night
before, and her new awareness of him as a person, as an equal, left her
feeling oddly agitated. She forced herself to ignore the feelings that
Ranma was evoking within her merely by his nearness through sheer
force of will, and her thoughts finally calmed. She continued to limber
herself up for the match, feeling her body almost instinctively readying
itself for combat, her mind clearing of all other thoughts but for a
single, driving purpose, to unleash the warrior soul now within her.
Nabiki sensed her heart rate speeding up, the blood within her body
beginning to flow more strongly as her muscles loosened up, and her
breathing deepening.
Senseis Takami and Fujinami watched the young couple from a
short distance away. Takami had casually pulled the other man away
when Nabiki emerged in her unexpected choice for workout garb.
They consulted with each other quietly, both feeling something in the
air was about to happen. Shortly after Ranma walked out in a similar
outfit to Nabiki's, Dean Fuyutsuki had emerged from the main
building to stand with them.
"I see that I am not too late for the show," noted the Dean with a
mild smile.
"No, you're right on time," said Takami. "They should be ready to
begin in a little while. I was planning on having them get the sparring
match out of the way first, before I put them through their paces."
"They make an intriguing pair," rumbled Fujinami, eyeing the two
similarly-garbed cadets. He was a rather large-framed man, almost six
feet in height, and his heavily-muscled build showed very few signs of
deterioration, despite the bright streaks of gray stretching back from
his temples. "They both show surprisingly great internal strength to
my eyes, despite their youth." Dean Fuyutsuki turned to face him.
"Indeed?" asked the Dean. "Fascinating." He turned to look at the
two teenagers, a broader smile appearing on his face, and he felt an
almost paternal pride now that he was about to see them in action. He
set down the small video camera and data recorder where they would
be able to capture all of the action, or so he hoped. *I can hardly wait
to see them begin. This is so thrilling.*
"Watching them fight each other will prove instructive for me, so
that I may better gauge their abilities," said the larger Fujinami. "I
feel that today's match will be most... enlightening." A very rare smile
crossed the man's craggy face.
Dean Fuyutsuki nodded at that, but most of his attention was on
activating the small pieces of equipment near him. He eyed the small
video monitor in his hand, and then he activated the miniaturized data
recorder unit. A stream of very tiny numerals began scrolling on the
screen as the small computer began its task of gathering data on the
two youths. It would not be until after the end of the match, when he
was able to analyze the data using the more powerful computer in his
office, that he would be able to obtain a rough estimate on their current
combat capabilities.
After their initial warm-up drills were over, Nabiki and Ranma both
moved back onto the large, padded mat that had been laid out on the
concrete for their match. They knelt across from each other, only a
scant few feet of mat separating them now, and then Ranma once
again smiled confidently across at Nabiki, his cool, blue eyes level
with her own gaze. She returned the smile with an equally confident,
perhaps a trifle smug one of her own as they both studied each other
carefully, and, as if by mutual consent, they each eventually found
themselves held by the other's gaze. There was almost a gentleness in
their gazes at each other, a calm sensuality in the attraction that they
both felt, so unlike the raw sexual need that Ranma had experienced
with Akane at a similar time.
"Think you can take me, Ranma-kun?" asked Nabiki suddenly, a
soft husk in her voice as she spoke, briefly breaking the spell between
them for a moment. Her body felt ready for combat. Her focus was
now exclusively on Ranma, her chosen opponent. However, other
unexplored feelings for him hovered in the back of her mind as an
almost comforting presence.
"That sounds much more like a question that I should be asking
you, Nabiki," replied Ranma with a steady look into her unwavering
gaze. "It looks as if we will soon see who takes who though." Ranma
felt very much aware of himself and his surroundings, especially of the
attractive and intelligent-looking girl now kneeling before him. He
felt oddly intimate with her at this time, but also very much aware of
the subtle cues that her body was giving off that told him that she was
a capable opponent, and one to be respected. It was a strange mixture
of desire and challenge, and the moment of truth between them was
very near now.
"Yes, we will, Ranma-kun," said Nabiki, almost absently. Her lips
parted slightly as she felt her passions kindling and building within
her, mixing into her awareness of Ranma as an opponent and as a
man. It was like a primal instinct was awakening and flickering into
life within her. Her gaze did not waver at all as she noticed the faint
aura that suddenly emerged around Ranma, a bluish light that aroused
an almost carnal awareness of him from somewhere very deep within
herself. She continued to hold fast to his gaze, while wearing her now
vaguely predatorial smile, one that matched his. Nabiki felt a deep
longing growing within her, as if she burned with a desire to fulfill the
purpose to which she was born to, one which she had been unaware of
until she saw it reflected from deep within Ranma's own eyes.
To Ranma's view, there suddenly seemed to be an odd halo of dim
bluish light that rose up around Nabiki's body, an almost unnoticeable
nimbus of energy. At perhaps that same moment, he felt himself
being surrounded by one as well, clothing his body like an intangible
and invisible veil. It was as if something within him had apparently
answered to, or perhaps even also had given, the unspoken challenge
as the result of a previously unknown instinct. It was as if he and
Nabiki had each triggered something in the other, something new to
both of them, a mere hint of a previously unsuspected and untapped
power within each of them. The odd effect only lasted for a few
moments though, dissipating almost as rapidly as it arose. Ranma's
eyes remained firmly locked onto Nabiki's, as her gaze was still riveted
to his own.
"Fascinating," murmured Sensei Fujinami. The energy, invisible to
the average eye, had been quite clear to his trained senses, and he
again marveled at the sight of the two youths. That they appeared to
have done it only by reflex, rather than by conscious intention, made it
even more astonishing to him. As he studied the two youths, he was
oddly reminded of two powerful predators suddenly finding themselves
face-to-face with each other, especially from the odd smiles that they
were giving to each other. He slowly walked over to them to act as the
referee, and he sensed them become aware of him without taking their
gazes from each other.
"This is only sparring, you two," said Fujinami in his very deep
voice. "So keep the damage levels down to a low roar, but show me
what each of you is capable of. This is to be a test of skill, not an
Arena bloodmatch. I assume that that is acceptable?" Both of them
nodded with a jerk of their heads as they stood up, eager to begin, and
their attentions were mainly on the opponent who stood opposite them.
Unlike when he had faced Akane, Ranma did not feel himself to be
possessed of the same, almost animalistic, desire to assert his male
dominance over Nabiki, not quite. There did exist an oddly intense
awareness of the girl before him, but he also felt a strong sense of
camaraderie with her as well. Ranma wanted to win against Nabiki,
but he didn't exactly want to bend her to his will as he had felt himself
desiring to do with Akane. Instead, he felt an eagerness to challenge
himself against an equal, one whom he subconsciously recognized as
somehow being both a rival and a friend at the same time. They were
both accidentally-adopted Heirs of the Anything-Goes School, and that
created a subtle bond between them that was undeniable, both within
the ring of combat and outside of it.
As the last few moments before the sparring match was to begin
dwindled, Nabiki experienced a multitude of sensations and feelings
filling her that were both new and exciting, yet they also felt as
familiar to her as her own breath. She felt the muscles in her body
almost humming with the desire to begin, and her nerves and reflexes
felt sharp as she studied Ranma. Her lungs filled and emptied of air in
a deep, regular pattern, and the blood almost seemed to sing in her
veins. She flipped Ranma a quick thumbs-up and a coy smile before
raising her hands up into a guard position. Nabiki felt ready for
anything.
Sensei Fujinami moved off to one side. He was reasonably certain
that they understood the instructions, and neither of them looked like
they intended to kill the other anyway. He slowly raised his hand and
then dropped it swiftly.
"BEGIN!"
Nabiki and Ranma came together in a rush, and they met each other
in the exact middle of the space between them. Their initial exchange
of blows was almost cautious, despite their mutual eagerness for what
they were now doing. Still, each of them held nothing back of their
martial arts skills, as Fujinami watched them carefully, analyzing their
new abilities with care. The two young fighters began to test each
other, both of them quickly becoming caught up in the thrill of the
struggle going on between them, as they each drove the other to the
limits of what they were capable of.
Nabiki quickly found herself to have a modest edge in speed over
Ranma, despite his many recent weeks of intensive physical training.
However, she was now undergoing her second year of the Academy's
physical training program, and she was at the very top of her class in
ability, even if she hadn't really been pushing herself to her body's full
limits. It was also quite clear to her that her martial arts skills, so
newly-gained from her counterpart, were roughly equal to Ranma's
own (and possibly better), but it was difficult for her to judge since
neither of them had managed to land a solid blow on the other yet.
However, she did know that she was enjoying this test of her new
skills a great deal, finding an intensely powerful sense of satisfaction
in challenging herself and her skills against a very worthy opponent,
like Ranma was quickly proving himself to be.
As he struggled to overcome Nabiki's surprisingly equal level of
skill, Ranma quickly discovered that he was not feeling the absolute
certainty of victory now that he had against Akane, and yet that very
same uncertainty filled him with an excited thrill. He was even now
pushing his speed, power, and martial arts skills to their present
limits, and he was finding that Nabiki was able to match him every
step of the way. As their struggles against each other continued, the
balance between them quickly swung back and forth, yet it never
seemed to move too far from equilibrium. Ranma was finding that it
was only his slightly greater physical strength and reach that enabled
him to offset Nabiki's marginally faster speed and equal skill.
Sensei Fujinami analyzed the patterns of their attacks and defenses
as both young fighters moved at an astonishing level of speed against
each other. What intrigued him most was that they were both using a
common central style to their movements, but it was one that he had
never seen before in his entire life. This mysterious central style was
very difficult to pick out as they moved against each other, yet it was
undeniably present. To his added amazement, he also counted no less
than three dozen different martial arts styles being utilized in the two
young warriors' individual combat repertoires. Bits and pieces of each
form's best elements were all being overlaid on top of this unknown,
central style.
*Amazing,* thought Fujinami with a solemn look. *Their skills are
impressive indeed. I look forward to training them to reach the limits
of their capabilities, if they even have any. Never before have I seen
two fighters with such high levels of potential.* He remained standing
at his position, his impassive, stone-gray eyes calmly watching the
events proceeding before him as the two adolescents fought hard
against each other. It was appearing as if Nabiki was gaining the
upper hand ever so slowly, but it was difficult to say for certain.
*You're good, Ranma,* thought Nabiki with a wolfish grin as she
ducked under his fist. *You're very good indeed.* Her lightning-fast
counterstrike narrowly missed his jaw as he parried it with a forearm.
Her knee blocked a kick, and one of Ranma's quick evasions kept her
foot from slamming into his gut on the counterstrike. However, after
over ten minutes of heavy sparring, Nabiki was starting to feel the first
hints of exhaustion beginning to slow her limbs, but she just forced her
body to maintain its present, full-speed fury.
It was now, during their current jockeying for dominance in their
sparring match, that Nabiki finally realized something interesting to
her. On her counterpart's world, that Nabiki Tendou was clearly the
best by far to any of the other young fighters in her peer group, and
she presumed that it was the same on that other world where Ranma
had gained his own, equally impressive skills from. But here, neither
of them could claim to be the clear and absolute best, and that fact
intrigued her a great deal. So they continued to duel against each
other, their full skills unleashed, both battling intensely for control of
the course of the fight, and each refusing to yield the smallest amount
to the other.
"We seem to be even on the ground," said Ranma as he eyed Nabiki
momentarily during a brief lull. They had broken apart from each
other to circle warily, each of them mustering their strength back up
before engaging the other once again. "So let's see how you deal with
this." Ranma gathered his legs beneath him and sprang into the air to
attack Nabiki from above, or at least that was his plan.
"Nice try, Ranma," said Nabiki with a wolfish grin, her reflexes
already triggering her legs to leap up to meet him in midair, before she
had even begun to consciously think about it. "But aerial combat is a
specialty of the Anything-Goes School. You should know that." The
two of them came together in a furious display of martial arts skill,
fists and feet flashing against each other for the brief time that they
almost seemed to hang suspended in the air.
*Such skill they both have... such wondrous martial arts skill,*
thought Dean Fuyutsuki, gazing with unabashed admiration as he
watched the two adolescents battling hard against each other, a sort of
paternal smile upon his face.
For several long minutes, the two struggling martial artists had
managed to achieve a rough stalemate with each other, but it could not
last forever. They landed only a few feet apart, but each was now
filled with a desire for victory that would not be denied, both caught
up in the passions that were swirling between them. A single moment
later, they each launched into the sky once again, and another rapid-
fire exchange of blows occurred, neither one quite able to penetrate the
defenses of their opponent.
Until the final moment.
Time seemed to stand still as there was the distinctive sound of two
fists striking solidly against flesh and bone. The two young martial
artists seemed to hang suspended in the air for a moment, as the three
onlookers finally saw what had just happened. Nabiki's left fist had
caught Ranma squarely across the jaw, a powerful blow backed by her
whole shoulder behind it that had kayoed him almost instantly upon
impact. However, Ranma's right fist had slammed into Nabiki's cheek
at exactly the same moment with equal strength, driving it through the
small hole in her defenses and achieving a double knockout. Both
fighters wore very surprised looks on their faces in the moment before
they each fell unconscious and plummeted down to land sprawled out
upon the mat. Ranma ended up landing face-down, his jaw already
purpling, and Nabiki fell to land face-up, her face also bearing a large
bruise on her left cheek.
"Hmm," murmured Sensei Fujinami. "A cross-counterstrike punch
to end their first match. Interesting." He slowly settled himself next
to Nabiki, bending his knees deeply as he reached out one hand to turn
her head from side to side. He looked up at Fuyutsuki. "She appears
to be simply stunned and should awaken shortly." He moved over to
Ranma and gently flipped him over onto his back, before his fingers
moved to lightly touch the unconscious boy's jaw. He grunted when he
was satisfied that there was no significant damage done to either of
them.
Fuyutsuki moved nearer, his thoughts unreadable behind a mask of
professional calm as he looked down at Nabiki, her face slack-jawed
and bruised. *You did very well, my dear, even though it was a tie. I
now know that you will be able to obtain your five victories against
young Saotome, which will stifle his protests as to your capabilities.
After what I have just witnessed, I don't see that as being any sort of
difficulty now.*
"They were fighting using the same style," said Fujinami, looking
over at Fuyutsuki, who was now squatting down to study Nabiki's
unconscious form more closely. "It was a kempo style, of that much I
am sure, but it was nothing like I have ever seen before. I heard the
girl call it the Anything-Goes School during the match. I have to
confess that I have never heard of any such school of martial arts."
"Indeed?" asked Fujinami, his eyes studying the fallen Nabiki and
Ranma. *Where could they have gained such skills? It does not make
any sense.* He paused in his thoughts and smiled slightly. *Still, it
does not really matter. They have them now, and I intend to see how
far they are able to drive each other. Now, more than ever before, I am
certain that the two of them will make an excellent pairing.*
After several minutes, Nabiki groaned and blinked her eyes open,
her hand moving up to touch her cheek and wincing at the pain. *I
guess I lost,* she thought, sitting up slowly only to see that Ranma
was returning to consciousness now as well. *Perhaps not.*
*Owww,* was Ranma's first conscious thought, his jaw feeling like
someone had hit it with a sledgehammer. He blinked his eyes open to
see Nabiki sitting there near him on the mat, her knees pulled up in
front of her as she smirked at him. *I lost? To Nabiki?* He stared at
the Chinese-style clothed girl for a moment.
"Welcome back to the living, Ranma-kun," said Nabiki, a more
normal smile now on her face. She noticed his attention being drawn
to the bruise on her cheek, and smirked at him again. "You hit pretty
hard, Saotome. Trying to break my face?"
"Not especially," said Ranma, sitting up himself. He felt the pain of
his jaw pulsing in intensity, but it was ignorable. "You hit pretty hard,
too." He paused, a half-smile on his lips as he continued, "for a cute
girl, that is."
"You got that right, Ranma-kun," said Nabiki, staring him right in
the eyes, her smile turning almost coy. "Don't you ever forget it,
either." She lowered her knees slightly and rested her palms on the
ground behind her once again. She saw Ranma's eyes drifting down
her front reflexively before he pulled them away. She felt pleased at
his attention.
"Ah, I see that my two new pupils are now awake," said Fujinami in
calm tones, interrupting the scene, his deep voice rumbling. "You two
youngsters show a lot of promise as martial artists." He walked over
from where he had been talking with Sensei Takami. The Dean was
no longer present.
*More than you know,* thought both Ranma and Nabiki at almost
the same time. They looked at each other briefly, appraisingly.
"But now that you're both recovered, it's now time to train," said the
large man. "So get off your butts and hit the track. I want each of you
to finish six kilometers. You have thirty minutes." He frowned when
they did not immediately get up, and he roared at them with a truly
astonishing amount of presence, "I said, GET GOING! And because
of your laziness, whoever comes in last must give me a hundred sit-ups
and push-ups after we finish the rest of your workout today!"
The two of them leaped to their feet and took off at a run, the dust
of their departure scarcely settling before they were halfway to the
track. Sensei Fujinami stared after them with a neutral look on his
craggy face, but inside he was smiling.
******************************
Fuyutsuki took the small disk from inside the recorder unit that he
had taken with him and inserted it into the computer on his desk. He
hummed softly as he waited for the software to download the data and
images that he had recorded of his two special students. A nameless
computer technician had developed this particular program a few years
earlier for use in the Arena, to evaluate the combat potentials of the
various fighters for odds-setting purposes, but it was also ideally suited
for Fuyutsuki's current needs. He made a mental note to get a record
of Kodachi Kunou's data, in addition to a video of one of her fights for
his analysis of her progress.
After several minutes, the system finally beeped that it had finished
processing the data and video images, and Fuyutsuki leaned forward to
see the results on the monitor. He punched up Ranma's information
first and watched as the screen cleared and a video sample taken from
the fight was displayed in one window. In another box, the computer
began running down its preliminary calculations for the teenaged
martial artist's vital statistics.
*Name: Ranma Saotome
*Age: 16
*Sex: Male
*Height: 1.71 meters
*Mass: 67 kilograms
*Physical Capabilities:
* Structural Integrity: 82.51
* Muscle Strength: 85.78
* Lung Capacity: 83.24
* Eyesight: 82.96
* Auditon: 94.98
* Dynamic Eyesight: 94.63
* Metabolism: 95.19
* Neuroreflex: 93.99
*Offensive Capability: 80.75
*Defensive Capability: 83.94
*Recoverability: 88.92
*Speed: 86.45
*Perseverance: 87.89
*Objectivity: 82.38
*Perception: 90.12
*Judgment: 87.44
*Adaptability: 88.65
*Estimated Current Fighting Capacity: 1489.82
"An excellent beginning, Ranma," said Fuyutsuki, smiling. "I have
very high hopes indeed that you will only grow stronger still. As it
stands, your abilities would stand up against some of the best Arena
fighters of around your same age. Now, let us see how Miss Nabiki
Tendou is rated." He punched a few more keys and the view on the
screen quickly changed to a few highlights of Nabiki's movements and
a new list of calculated statistics appeared.
*Name: Nabiki Tendou
*Age: 17
*Sex: Female
*Height: 1.68 meters
*Mass: 52 kilograms
*Physical Capabilities:
* Structural Integrity: 80.27
* Muscle Strength: 80.29
* Lung Capacity: 81.99
* Eyesight: 83.22
* Auditon: 96.05
* Dynamic Eyesight: 95.11
* Metabolism: 95.37
* Neuroreflex: 94.82
*Offensive Capability: 82.79
*Defensive Capability: 86.25
*Recoverability: 88.14
*Speed: 88.92
*Perseverance: 88.06
*Objectivity: 85.11
*Perception: 91.25
*Judgment: 89.86
*Adaptability: 87.41
*Estimated Current Fighting Capacity: 1494.91
"A little better than Ranma's, but so close as to be almost the same,"
noted Fuyutsuki with mild surprise. "It will be quite interesting to see
how they do, now that they will be competing against each other. I
must make a point of monitoring their training more closely now."
With the tap of a few keystrokes, he quickly saved all of the files, and
then he closed down the software with a somewhat bemused look on
his face.
Fuyutsuki steepled his fingers together and turned his chair to face
out the window in his office, watching the shadows lengthening
around the building as the sun lowered in the sky. He was mildly
troubled by such an unexpected, overnight improvement of the two
cadets as fighters, but it put had him ahead of his timetable so he did
not question his good fortune. *I am sure that I will learn the reason
why in time.* He smiled, content for the moment at the course of
events.
******************************
Ranma hung his head wearily as he stood beneath the blast of hot
water that was sluicing down on him from the shower nozzle. He and
Nabiki had hardly spoken during class, both of them concentrating on
outdoing the other, and the extra push-ups and sit-ups that he had to
do for coming in a single pace behind Nabiki had used up almost the
last of his reserves. The ache in his jaw had finally stopped a while
ago, and he rubbed the back of one hand gently against it. To find out
that he and Nabiki had tied had been a surprise to him, but he was
looking forward to their rematch tomorrow. He planned on practicing
a little before classes in the backyard, to try and give himself some sort
of an edge that he could use against the girl he now had to contend
with.
*Nabiki beat me,* he thought, feeling just a little irritated at that.
*Well, actually she tied me, but the principle is the same...I didn't
win.* He lifted his face up and let the hot water spray him in the face.
*It feels... rather strange to meet a girl who is now my equal in skill,
especially with it being Nabiki. I wonder how the other Ranma would
handle it?*
His tired mind was not giving him the answer though, and it was
perhaps just as well. He shut the water off and let himself drip dry for
a few moments before grabbing his towel and drying off briskly. He
sauntered out to the locker area and opened up his locker. He pulled
the dirty workout clothes from within and placed them back into the
paper bag, taking a moment to examine the red silk shirt with a slight
smile. He then stuffed the bag into his bookbag.
Ranma quickly changed clothes, and put his uniform back on. He
slung his bag up onto his shoulder and walked out of the locker room.
It had been a very long, odd day today, and he simply wanted to go
home, eat, and not have to think about girls, martial arts, or the very
chaotic confusion that his life seemed to be quickly becoming.
******************************
At the main gate, the setting sun illuminated the waiting figures of
Tatewaki Kunou and Mikado Sanzenin. They had been standing,
solemnly waiting, for the better part of an hour after the last cadets
had filed out past them, but the target of their wrath had not made an
appearance yet. It looked like he had already left, and Kunou was
feeling more than a little put out by that. Mikado was simply bored.
"I don't think that he's coming," observed Mikado. He tapped the
tip of his wooden weapon against the ground.
"That wretch, Saotome!" grumbled Kunou, his hand gripping the
handle of his bokken more tightly. "He probably saw me waiting for
him and has fled like a coward from my awesome prowess!" His
stomach suddenly rumbled loudly, and Kunou grimaced. "Perhaps I
shall pursue my vengeance anon, but my wrath shall be even greater
for the delay."
"I should be getting home to dinner as well," noted Mikado. "I have
to face my prospective fianc�e once again." He sighed at the thought
of having to marry a ditzy, little airhead like Azusa Shiratori, but the
girl's family was gaining in prominence in the Empire and his father
thought it would make a good match. *Of course, now that Kunou is
so concerned about his sister spending time with this Saotome fellow,
perhaps now might be a good time to try and persuade my father to
pursue a match between me and sweet Kodachi-chan,* he thought
with a calculating look towards his friend.
"I will have my driver drop you off on my way home," said Kunou.
"I thank you," replied Mikado. "Perhaps we can try this again
tomorrow morning? We can catch Saotome when he arrives."
"An excellent plan!" exclaimed Kunou. "The morning sun shall
bear witness to the fall of Ranma Saotome at my hand!"
The two young noblemen turned around and entered the limousine
that had remained waiting by the curb for them to finish their duel
with Ranma. The long vehicle sped away from the front gate, back
towards their respective manors.
******************************
Less than two minutes later, Ranma walked around the corner of the
main building, rubbing his neck with one hand to relieve a stiff muscle
in it. He headed out from the campus through the main gate area, his
left foot stepping right where Kunou had just been standing, and then
continuing past to continue on his way home.
When he arrived at the Saotome household, Ranma was very tired
and hungry. He slipped off his shoes and left his bookbag by the door.
He could smell dinner waiting, and he was powerless to resist its siren
call. His stomach was sending urgent messages to his brain.
Nodoka heard the front door open and close, and the distinctive
sounds of someone fumbling around in the entryway area, as she was
putting the finishing touches on dinner. She turned down the heat on
the stove and checked the rice cooker quickly, and then stepped into
the hallway. "Ranma? Is that you?"
"Yeah, mom," Ranma replied as he pulled his shoes off. "It's me."
*He called me... Mom?* thought Nodoka with surprise. She then
noticed a bandage on his face and frowned. *Since when does my son
take to using slang talk? What sort of uncouth people has he been
spending time with?* Nodoka took a closer look at her son. "What
happened to your face, young man?" Her tone of voice was one that
mothers have used since the dawn of time.
"Just something that happened to me during my training class,"
replied Ranma, not meeting her eyes. "It's only a bruise, really. See?"
He quickly peeled the bandage away from it, revealing a purple and
yellow contusion on his jaw to Nodoka's gaze.
*He's been in a fight again,* she thought as she narrowed her eyes a
little at the sight, since it clearly looked like a fist strike to her eyes.
*He looks awful. First there were all those bruises and injuries on him
yesterday, and again he looks hurt today. What is going on with him?
Has Ranma joined some sort of gang?* She was more than a little
concerned that her only son was coming home looking like he'd been
in a fight once again, but she decided to refrain from commenting
now. So she put a smile on her face and welcomed him home.
"Welcome home, my son," said Nodoka. "Your father said he
would be working late at the Ministry tonight, so dinner will just be
you and me. Take your place at the table, and I will serve dinner."
She turned around, walked back into the kitchen, and busied herself at
scooping food into serving bowls.
"That sounds great, Mom," said Ranma, a little tiredly, after her
retreating back. He walked over to his usual place at the table and
slumped down there. He noticed his mother looking over at him with
concern. *Maybe before I go to sleep, I'll do a little research on the
Datanet tonight,* he thought with a slight yawn. *I'll see if I can find
listings for some of the others. If I'm here, and the Tendou's are here,
then maybe Ukyou and Shampoo are too.* Ranma settled back to wait
as he softly tapped his chopsticks against the table.
Nodoka came out of the kitchen with a serving tray. She started to
set bowls of food down on the dining room table. Ranma felt his
mouth begin watering. His appetite had been going up with all of the
added exercise that had been getting, and the urge to consume
everything on the table was becoming almost overpowering.
"Tough day, Son?" asked Nodoka. *Perhaps engaging him to
Ukyou would be prudent,* she thought seriously. *I'm sure that she
could protect Ranma from whoever keeps beating him up.*
"It wasn't one of my better ones," replied Ranma, a little sullenly.
Nodoka set out the last item, a large serving bowl of rice. She
finished serving Ranma and herself, and he immediately began eating
at a rapid pace. Nodoka watched in stunned silence, her chopsticks
halfway to her mouth with a piece of chicken, as Ranma consumed all
of the food in his bowl in seconds. *Didn't he eat at all today?* She
saw that Ranma was almost ready to hand her his bowl for another
serving of rice when she set her bowl down and just stared at him, but
he continued to eat at his manic pace. She coughed politely into her
fist, but Ranma didn't appear to notice her as he scooped up the last
bits of rice. She coughed again, a little louder as she looked at him.
Ranma paused, suddenly realizing what he was doing. *Uh oh,* he
thought worriedly. *Mom hates poor table manners.* He set his bowl
down, and smiled innocently as he swallowed the food in his mouth.
Nodoka continued to look at him with a slight frown on her face.
"My goodness, Son," exclaimed Nodoka. "I haven't ever seen you
so hungry before. Did you skip lunch or something?" She hurriedly
dealt Ranma out another generous helping of rice and chicken, but she
still frowned deeply at him.
"Uhm, sorry," said Ranma. He had been so hungry that the other
Ranma's instincts had just seemed to take over. "I guess that I wasn't
thinking too clearly."
"Yes, well, you clearly have had a rough day, Ranma, but that does
not entitle you to display such atrocious manners at the dinner table,"
said Nodoka sternly. "I would hope that all my weeks of coaching you
in the proper etiquette would be showing more results by now. Is this
how you expect to eat when in polite company?" Nodoka sighed. She
did not want to spoil her good news by upsetting her only son, so she
smiled before speaking once again. "But it's all right, Ranma. Just
don't make a habit of eating like this. After all, how do you expect to
win a girl's heart if you eat like some kind of wild animal? I shudder
to think how you may act when we have visitors next week."
"Visitors?" inquired Ranma of her as he picked up his bowl and
began to eat at a more acceptable pace to his mother. She smiled and
set out a few photos in front of him. Ranma glanced down in mild
curiosity. He almost swallowed his chopsticks when he saw the three
faces that stared back at him from the photos. The mouthful of rice he
had just swallowed seemed to be lodged in his throat.
"Well, I had wanted to wait until after dinner to show you my little
surprise," said Nodoka with a bright smile. "But now is as good a time
as any for it. I took the liberty of visiting with a marriage broker this
afternoon." Ranma suddenly looked like he was having some trouble
breathing. "These are the three girls that she showed me as potential
brides for you. All of them are fine ladies from very good families.
I'm in the process of making arrangements for you to spend time with
each of them next week."
Ranma pounded his chest to get the rice he swallowed to go down.
He coughed for a moment, and then he gulped down some of his tea.
Nodoka looked on in concern. *I certainly never expected this sort of
reaction, * she thought in surprise. *He almost looks... scared.*
Ranma finally got himself back under control. He blinked several
times as he stared at the faces in the photos, as he already knew two of
them. *At least Akane isn't one of them,* he thought with a measure
of relief. That would have been too much for him to handle at this
time, what with the youngest Tendou recently developing some sort of
potentially violent fixation on him. The third photo was a pleasant
surprise in comparison, but the thought of Ukyou Kuonji suddenly
dropped into his life was worth a fear reaction all its own.
"M-m-marriage?" Ranma finally managed to stutter out.
"Why, yes," said Nodoka with a smile, puzzled by Ranma's strange
reaction to the sight of the pictures. "The nice lady that I met from the
matchmaking service told me that all three come from fine families in
the Empire. You already know the Tendou girl, I think. The middle
one, Kodachi Kunou, lives not very far from here. And the third girl,
Ukyou Kuonji, comes from a very well-respected family in the Koga
mountain area, one of the last of the ninja clans. But her family has
managed a large shrine in the area for several hundred years."
*Ninjas?* thought Ranma, getting a sudden sinking feeling in his
stomach for a moment. *When did the Kuonji's practice ninjutsu?
But I guess that might explain how such a silly thing like a fighting
style based around okonomiyaki could arise. At least she's not going
to be walking around dressed like a boy.* Then he realized that he
was probably being silly over nothing. *What are the odds of anything
strange happening? Kodachi is normal, Ukyou looks normal enough,
and as for Nabiki, well, she did look awfully cute in that outfit.* His
mother had gone back to looking at him with a puzzled expression.
"Well, what do you think?" asked Nodoka, noticing him holding
Nabiki's picture the longest of the three of them.
"I guess I should meet them then," he said, somewhat grudgingly,
after a moment. "Since you're going to all this trouble of arranging
things, that is." Ranma tapped one of his chopsticks on the table as he
thought. "I am curious as to something though."
"What is that, my son?" Nodoka took a sip of her tea.
"Well... why did you feel the need to arrange for a bride for me so
soon?" Ranma picked up his cup of tea, and noticed that his hand was
trembling slightly. He drank it down quickly.
"Well, you don't have a girlfriend," Nodoka replied. "I wasn't ever
sure if you would be able to tear yourself away from your studies long
enough to find a girl to marry, so I decided, as your mother, who only
has your best interests at heart, to arrange for you to meet someone
suitable. I'm having the marriage broker arrange for each girl and her
parents to visit us over the next week." Nodoka set down her teacup,
and gave Ranma a reassuring smile.
Ranma wasn't feeling reassured at all. *When did I lose control of
my own life?* But his stomach chose that moment to rumble loudly
again, still not satisfied with what he had consumed so far, so he
decided to leave off such worrisome thoughts until later. His thoughts
kept drifting to two particular girls though, each of them attractive to
him for different reasons. While he still felt a little like the walls were
starting to close in on his life, he also felt a vague happiness at the
thought of marriage to one of the two.
Finally, after four bowls of rice and a sizable amount of chicken
and vegetables had crossed his lips, Ranma sat back and sighed, his
hunger now satiated. He got up from the table, thanked his mother for
such a delicious meal, and headed up to his room with the intention of
doing some research.
When Ranma got into his room, he eyed the computer sitting on his
desk, eyed the futon laid out and ready for him, and sighed. *It can
wait until tomorrow,* he decided. He peeled off the bandage, grateful
to see that the bruise was much better than it was a few hours earlier,
and by morning he was sure that it would be gone. He undressed, laid
down on his futon, and he was asleep within moments.
******************************
Ranma found himself in the Tendou Dojo. The other Ranma sat
opposite him, a smirk on her face. They were dressed nearly the same,
except Ranma-chan was in a blue shirt instead of wearing a red one
like himself. He wasn't quite sure, but she seemed to be wearing the
ghost of a smirk on her face. Ranma looked around while she opened
her eyes slowly.
"Welcome back," said Ranma-chan. "It looks like you've had a busy
day." She smirked more obviously at him.
"Tell me something I don't know," replied Ranma. "Now I have my
mother looking at Nabiki, Kodachi, or Ukyou to be my future fianc�e."
Ranma-chan paused. She dropped her feet flat to the floor and
suddenly bent over as if in extreme pain, hugging her knees. Her body
began to convulse, and strange, muffled sounds were coming out of
her. While Ranma kept looking at Ranma-chan, she suddenly reared
back and laughed deeply. "Y... you...." The rest went unsaid as the
other Ranma just continued to laugh and laugh.
Ranma didn't sleep well that whole night.
******************************
"I told Ranma about my meeting with the marriage broker during
dinner, Genma dear," said Nodoka happily as she sat next to him in
bed. He was reading a book, and just grunted acknowledgment. "I
think that this will work out well for him. Any one of these three girls
seems like she would make a good bride for our son."
Genma just grunted again. It had been a long day at the Ministry,
and he simply wasn't interested in what he viewed as Nodoka's foolish
chattering. Nodoka, more than a little irritated at his inattention to
her, grabbed the book away from him, and Genma blinked his eyes
owlishly at her.
"Genma Saotome!" she thundered. "You will listen to me when I'm
talking about our son's future!"
"Yes, Nodoka-chan," he replied. He put on his most attentive look.
"I still think that Ranma is too young to get tied down with a wife."
"Tied down?" Nodoka blinked. "Genma Saotome, are you going to
sit there and tell me that you've felt trapped and tied down by being
married to me?" Nodoka folded her arms. Genma sighed.
"Of course not, Nodoka-chan," he said in soothing tones. *I'm not
that stupid,* he thought quickly. "I just think that you may be a little
premature in trying to find Ranma a bride right now. The boy still has
some growing up to do."
"Marriage will do that for him," she said confidently. "Our son
needs a strong woman to give him guidance."
"You're probably right, dear," agreed Genma. "Can I have my book
back now?"
Nodoka narrowed her eyes angrily at him. Genma gulped, and he
started to sweat a little. As much as he loved her, Nodoka had always
intimidated him a little, and she had ever since they were married. *If
you know what's good for you my son, you'll prolong the decision as
long as you possibly can,* he thought sincerely. He began placating
Nodoka, and by the time the lights were turned out they were both
occupied with something other than arguing.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Special thanks go out to Jim Bader for his permission to borrow from
his work Nabiki � (A Very Scary Thought).
Thanks to my pre-readers for all of their help and advice:
Michael Allen
Jim Bader
Donny Cheng
David Eddy
David P. Gao
Doug_W
Rhialto
ShortYes
D.B. Sommer
T.H. Tiger