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Of Cats and Men (Part 2)
By Kit
Yuota waited as Hiromi saw Ranma to the exit of the building. Once she came back in and closed the door he called over to her.
"What," she asked with all the annoyance that a 10 year-old girl can deliver to her older brother.
"I don’t like you playing with that boy," he said matter-of-factly.
"I don’t care what you think, oniichan," she replied and started to head off to her room.
"Well, Mom and dad don’t know it yet, but I heard he put 5 boys in the hospital last week."
"I know," she replied over her back.
"You know!" He said jumping up and following her down to her room. "What do you mean you know?"
"I was on my way home, and they tried to attack me. He saved me," she said with quite a bit of enthusiasm.
Yuota blinked. He wasn’t sure what to think of that. "Well, I see. Still you don’t need to be around that kind of person," he tried lamely.
"And what kind of person is that, huh? One who would do anything for me?" she replied thinking of that fight, and the dozen romance mangas laying about her room
"I heard both he and his father are drifters," he said indignantly. "You can’t trust those kind of people. They think they can do anything they want without care for other people." He walked around the room, his arms waving back and forth. "I have heard that people have started losing stuff every since they came to town."
"He’s not like that!" She defended.
"Of course, you don’t think he’s like that. Your just a little girl, what do you know of the world."
"You’re only one year older than me, and I know you don’t know that much more than I do."
"Listen to you. A few days with him and your back talking your older brother."
"Like I never put you in your place before!"
"Just wait till mom gets back from shopping!"
"You wouldn’t dare!"
"Just watch me!"
"You do that, and I’ll tell her about your picture taking."
Yuota’s eyes got real big, "You wouldn’t!"
"As long as you don’t," Hiromi finished with a smirk and crossed her arms.
"What do you think your doing!" Akane huffed, after having climbed onto the roof.
"Uh," Ranma jumped a little in surprise, realizing just how little attention he had been paying to his surroundings.
"Well!"
"Thinking. What’s it to ya?"
"And you have to do this over MY room?"
Ranma looked around and from the position of the tree found she was right. "I just needed to be alone, and this was a comfortable spot."
"Okay," she began. She looked around, as she wasn’t quite ready to let him off the hook yet. She fidgeted with the question she wanted to ask, but wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
"So, is this where you ran away from school to?" She asked instead.
"I didn’t run away!" was his knee-jerk response. Taking a deep breath, he tried again. "I went to a couple o’ places, but there just seemed to be too many people, so I came here ‘nstead." He didn’t know why he tried to hold back on his usual responses. After all, he had already tried being nice when he first got here, but everyone made it obvious they didn’t want him here. Just for some reason, he didn’t feel like being alone right now.
"Who is Hiromi?" Akane finally brought herself to ask; her voice was almost a whisper.
"I don-" he began, his face contorted in that silly expression she had seen when he was trying to remember Ryouga’s name. She had to fight not to laugh.
‘She’s that girl I saw.’ Ranma thought. "I don’t know."
"Then why did you shout her name before you jumped through the window?" Akane growled, growing angry again.
"I shouted her name?" He didn’t even remember saying it.
"So you do know her!" Akane countered.
"No." Ranma shifted his position back to looking off the roof into the distance. Akane anger continued to grow as he just sat there, obviously lying to her. "At least I don’t think so," Ranma said at last, narrowly avoiding being kicked off the roof.
"What do you mean you don’t think so?" Akane asked, barely holding in her anger in check.
"I thought I saw a girl fall out the window."
"There was no one at the window, you must have been dreaming," Akane pronounced, case solved. He is an idiot and possible insane as well as a pervert.
"Usually, my nightmares don’t get me to jump out of windows."
Akane blinked. Something in what he just said didn’t quite sound right. "How often do you dream of girls throwing themselves out of windows?"
"This is the first, I think," he smirked. "Usually I don’t remember too much, just the…" he trailed off. He almost admitted to being afraid of a stupid dream. It was bad enough they now knew of his fear of cats.
"H- how often do you have nightmares?" she asked, unsure what she thought he was going to say.
"Oh, about the same as everyone else I suppose. Only a couple of times a week."
Akane turned away from him, trying not to cry. Ranma caught her movement out of the corner of his eye. ‘Great, now she thinks I can’t handle stupid dreams.’ "Well, guess I should wash up before dinner." He stood up, and jumped back down the ground. Akane turned back to stop him, but couldn’t find the words.
"Hey you," a boy called out across the yard to where Ranma and Hiromi where having lunch. Ranma looked up at the boy making his way toward them and smirked.
"Your that kid that put my brother in the hospital, aren’t cha." The boy stated. Several other boys started to form a circle surrounding them.
"Maybe, what of it." Ranma said simply.
"You must be dumb or something." He smirked. "First you come here, and attack my family. And now you’re trying to take my girl away from me."
"They tried to attack me. And I’m not your girl, Giru!" Hiromi replied.
"They attacked you?" One of the boys in the back asked, he hadn’t heard that part of the story.
"All six of them tried to, anyway." Ranma said as he shifted positions slightly. He was still sitting, but now could easily jump or strike out. He cursed himself mentally for letting himself relax into the less defensible position. A mistake he would not be telling his father about.
"He beat-up all six of Koji’s gang?" Another boy said softly.
"Not all of them, Koji didn’t have a mark on him."
"That’s because he ran away." Ranma added nonchalantly.
"He made Koji run away," yet another boy paraphrased. The more the other boys heard, the more it was clear Giru had not told them the whole story. It was also becoming very clear that they might not want to mess with this boy.
"You got lucky, that’s all. Your nothing," Giru shouted, realizing that he was losing most of his crowd. When it became apparent that he might lose them all if he didn’t do something, he decided to do just that.
Giru launched his fist forward, the blade of his knife pooping out of its sheath so fast, almost nobody noticed it. And just as suddenly, Ranma was not where he was suppose to be. Looking up, he was rewarded with two feet planted in his face, and he went down fast. Ranma jumped off him, before he hit the ground, landing just to Giru’s right.
"Your gonna pay for that one." As Giru got back up and glared at Ranma, Ranma saw the stern look on Hiromi’s face, that some how seemed to shout at Ranma that she was not happy.
Giru revealed a second knife in his other hand and he launched into a combination of punches and jabs. Ranma started dodging and weaving throughout. Giru had some training in marital arts and had been, until now, the toughest boy at school. It was clear to about everyone except for Giru, that he was very outclassed.
Quickly teachers came and broke up the fight. Sending Giru to the principal’s office. All of the teachers who had come over, where very please with how Ranma had handled it, having only seen him dodging and refusing to even once hit his opponent, so they didn’t bother sending him to see the principal.
Ranma was happy because that meant his father wouldn’t be called in. The other kids were happy to see Giru get trashed, even if he hadn’t been hit after the first initial kick. Happiest of all was Hiromi; ‘Everyone deserves a chance!’
"By soft what light through yonder gate would grace such a fair and noble warrior. Tis the morning, and my chance to renew her hope of being freed from the bonds of that miscreant Saotome would place upon you."
"Doesn’t he ever learn?" Ranma asided to Akane.
"And fear not pig-tailed girl, where ever his dark arts may have hidden thee. I shall endeavor to free you both, so that you may enjoy the attentions I may visit upon you."
A shiver ran up Ranma’s spine as Kuno’s words reminded him of certain dreams that he had awoken from in a cold sweat. An angry battle aura flared around Ranma, to those who could sense them. "She is never going to like you Kuno!" Ranma shouted as he started toward Kuno to teach him a lesson or two.
Akane, however, got to Kuno first, with her fist readied to knock him into next week. She had plenty of reason to be upset with Kuno for just being here. When she noticed Ranma’s reaction to Kuno’s speech, of which the implications disturbed her greatly anyway, she felt she had to react.
"So, the beautiful tigress wouldst spar again with me." Kuno pinned. "If you should win, I will allow you to date with me!" Kunou called, as he attempted to block Akane’s strikes.
"Hey, he was mine!" Ranma shouted at Akane, extremely upset to have a girl fighting for him. Then he saw it. Kunou was bringing his boken down with all his strength, and his target, standing with her back to him completely unaware, was a little girl with short dark hair dressed in a light brown school uniform looking scared.
In a flash, Ranma jumped over Akane taking the boken hit square on his back. Following through he tackled Kunou to the ground. Both, rolling over, sprang back to their feet.
"So Saotome, you would fight with me at last." Kunou called. The fog that veiled Kuno’s mind and protected him from all the evils of a world filled with his insane family lifted slightly. He had hit Saotome fair. And knew that whatever dark magics he used to protect him were not working now. He was the best fighter of the most powerful marital art. Victory was his today.
Ranma huffed, as he tried to get his bearings back. Fortunately, Ranma’s tackle knocked his arm such that the effectiveness of his attack, already weaker since he was striking at Akane, was substantially less than his full strength, which could break concrete with air pressure alone.
Ranma looked over to where the little girl was standing by Akane. Both were looking at him very angry for his attack on Kunou. He Turned back to look Kunou straight in the eye. "If you ever try to hurt her again," Ranma said softly, yet with as much hatred and venom as he could, "I will kill you." Ranma’s battle-aura flashed as he said the last. Then, leaving the entire student body behind stunned, he walked into the school.
"Wow, did you see that, Ranma stopped Kunou without even hitting him!"
"Oh, that’s so romantic, how he took that hit for his fiancée!"
"Did you hear what he said to Kunou?!" Everyone began gossiping about what they thought they had just witnessed thus a large number of students found themselves late for their first class.
The fog that protected Kunou’s mind from the evils of the world slowly descended back to its proper place. Kuno was now convinced more than ever that he had always been right about Saotome. Only a demon’s eyes could flash the way his did. And the way he took that hit, even knowing his protection was not strong enough to stop his righteous blade, proved that the best way to defeat the black curse’s hold on both his tigress and his pig-tailed goddess was to beat them. Oh, how he hated and loathed the idea, but he would not - no, he could not betray them. He would do what his duty, his honor demanded, and free them both personally.
"Oh, hello Saotome-san. Won’t you have a seat?" The schoolteacher began.
"What has my boy done this time?" Saotome grumbled. Too many times he had had this talk. If only he could get them to understand that this was part of his son’s training, but they never understood.
"He is a wonderful boy, Saotome-san. You should be proud of him." Genma blinked, then decided he would take up that offer to sit down. "He has been doing much better than his previous records would indicate." Genma only nodded, that would allow him to keep him out longer next time they had to move.
"And he shows a very active imagination, as you can see from one of his writing assignments here," she continued. Genma only nodding. He wasn’t really listening, as this was not the way most of these parent-teacher conferences usually ran.
"As you can see, your son has been a delight to have in my class. And after the other day, I think all of the teachers wish they had…"
"The other day?" Genma interrupted. "Why, what happened?"
Oh, he didn’t tell you?" She smiled good-naturedly. "Well, boys will be boys, I guess." She then proceeded to tell him about the one-way fight as she and the other teachers had witnessed it.
"I’m home," Nabiki called out automatically. Something was going on, but she didn’t know what yet.
On her way up the stairs to her room, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
‘Okay. First, Ranma.’ She thought. He was acting weird. Then again, they had only been here a few weeks; this might not be all that strange of a behavior from him. After all, considering what she did know of his upbringing, Nabiki unconsciously shivered, who knows what else may be running around in that head of his.
Absently she wondered what it would take to get Ranma to see a shrink. Not that thought that much more of their opinion, but if Ranma was dangerous. She let that thought trail off as she remembered Ranma curling up in Akane’s lap. She was the only one he would let get near him. At some deep level, he trusted her. ‘Of course with that idiot of a father, ‘ Nabiki smirked.
Akane needed to quit hitting Ranma. ‘If he stopped trusting her,’ Nabiki thought as she opened her door. She hadn’t had time this morning for her normal soak in the furo, and she had blamed most of her day on that.
As she stepped out into the hallway, Genma also stepped out into the hallway. He turned at her and smiled as he started down stairs in only a towel, carrying his bathing supplies. She glared at his back. ‘Hadn’t he heard of ladies first?’
"Want me to drag him outside and beat him up for you?" Akane asked from behind, only slightly startling her. They both laughed.
"Hey, is that a new perfume you’re wearing?" Nabiki asked.
"Nope." Ranma called from behind Nabiki. "That’s a bath oil." Akane and Nabiki both looked at him with shock. Ranma made a show of smelling the air and continued. "A special strawberry-apple mix with yewkuptus and," pausing to think, "geranium." He smiled.
"When did you become an expert on bath oils?" Akane inquired.
"Just one of those things you pick up on the road," Ranma replied with a shrug. "Suppose to help you relax, and good for the skin," he recited in a soft almost sweet tone. As he slipped into his room he added, "Oh, and good for school I think. Something about helping thinking or memory or somethin’."
"Well, Ranma is just full of surprises this week," Nabiki quipped as she returned to her room. Her soak would have to wait for later.
Plopping down on her bed, she though about the stranger that she had seen talking to Kunou. She was too far away to hear what they were talking about. She wasn’t even sure why it stuck out in her head as strange, but she always listened to her gut instinct.
Pin-pon, pin-pon.
"Hello?"
"Uhm, is Hiromi-chan there?" A tentative Ranma squeaked through the building intercom.
"Silly, its me!" Hiromi giggled back.
"Great! Would you like to go cat huntin’ with me?"
"Cat hunting? What do you want with cats?" Hiromi asked playfully.
"The old man wants me to try to get as many of the strays around as I can."
"Uh huh?"
"Well, he said something ‘bout get’n some cat treats, like fish-sausages and catnip. I guess he’s wanting ta get’em a good home or somethin’."
"Cool!" Hiromi replied cutely. "Count me in!" She released the button and went to grab her coat.
"You’re going out with that homeless boy?" Yuota said as she opened the door.
"I am going out to save the kittens!" She replied theatrically then shut the door behind her as she left.
Akane awoke to her alarm going off. But she didn’t move to shut it off. Something was in bed next to her, and it wasn’t p-chan. Slowly she looked over and saw Ranma’s face nuzzled up against hers.
Ranma slowly opened his eyes, acutely aware that there was not an alarm clock in his room.
"YOU PERVERT!" Akane screamed as she grabbed the closest thing and silenced her clock against Ranma’s head forever.
Ranma quickly jumped out of the bed after that.
"GET OUT! YOU PERVERT!" Akane continued as she looked for something larger to grab.
"It’s not what it looks like!" Ranma attempted.
"Then what is it! Huh?!" Akane dared.
Ranma’s mind quickly searched for something that might work, since he didn’t have a clue why he was in her bed. ‘Ah ha!’ he thought. "It’s not like I’d want to sleep with you or nothin’!"
Two seconds later, Ranma found himself hurtling out the window only to make a very familiar landing. "Water. Why’s it always got to be water."
"Was that Ranma’s voice I heard from your room Akane?" Nabiki asked from the doorway.
"I don’t want to talk about it! Doesn’t anybody knock around her!" Akane said as they both looked down at the remains of her door. The bottom had been completely shredded into confetti, leaving the top held on by one hinge to swing open freely. They both looked up at each other.
Akane walked out past Nabiki and up to the guestroom where Ranma and his father where staying. Akane walked up and put her hand out to open the door, then she hesitated.
Nabiki, following her train of thoughts, and privacy not being her biggest concern reached out to grab the door.
As the door crumbled to the floor, they both gasped at what they saw. The room was a total wreck. Hugh scratches marked the walls. Torn clothes where everywhere. Nabiki was the first one to recognize Genma’s unconscious form tossed upside down in one corner. He looked severely beaten, but still breathing.
"Well, I guess there will be plenty for breakfast." Nabiki said. She quickly spun away and started down the stairs. "If you want to lay him down properly, I’ll give Dr. Tofu a call." Nabiki called back to Akane, not bothering to turn around. She knew she would lose it if she did.