The characters of the Ranma 1/2 universe are the creation and possession of the brilliant Rumiko Takahashi. They belong to Rumiko Takahashi and her licensees (Shogakukan Inc., Kitty-Fuji TV, Viz Communications Inc.)
No copyright infringement is intended.
"Ranma and his father have been on a long training voyage," Soun Tendou explained. "Recently, it seems they crossed into China."
"Wow! China!" Nabiki exclaimed. She was the only one apparently impressed. ‘I wonder if he made any good contacts while he was over there.’
"What’s so great about China?" Akane replied in a huff. It wasn’t like she needed to go to China to get as good as she was. Nor did she need another perverted idiot trying to force her to ‘date’ him. She wished Dr. Tofu would notice her.
"Is he cute?" Nabiki inquired, ignoring Akane. After all, she already had all the boys eating out of her hands.
"How old is he?" Kasumi asked, a concerned look on her face. "Younger men bore me." Actually, she thought she remembered the Saotomes from when their mother was alive. If that was true, she was pretty sure this Ranma was younger than she was. And as devoted to her family as she was, she did not want to take up the mantel of heir now. There was still the hope of college. After all, she knew of several people who had to take the entrance tests two or three times before they scored high enough, and she had been studying those books from Dr. Tofu so much.
Soun just laughed at the eagerness of his daughters. ‘This was going better than I thought.’
"What kind of guy is this Ranma?" Kasumi tried, reverting back to her ‘Proper Daughter’ tone of voice. It usually got through to their father better than anything else she had thought of.
"Ahem." Soun turned a serious eye to his precious daughters. "No idea," he braved. They had mostly taken it well so far.
"No idea?" Nabiki echoed, leaning forward to better gauge his response.
"I’ve never met him," Soun answered honestly.
"Leggo y’ol’ fool!" A familiar voice broke though the increasingly tense situation.
"We have visitors!" Kasumi chimed, happy for the excuse to step away.
"Ooo! It must be Ranma!" Nabiki jumped up and took off for the front door.
"Saotome, my friend! We’ve been waiting!" Soun followed up the charge.
‘How depressing. Boys!’ Akane sulked. All Akane could think about was how all the boys at Furinkan had been treating her since the first week of the new term. Oh, how she had looked forward to graduating from her secondary school, only to discover the raging hormones that ran unchecked through her new school. Refuse to go on a date, and the whole school attacks you. And did the teachers try to help? No, they only made her stand in the hall holding buckets of water until she was good and fast enough to make it to class on time.
Suddenly Nabiki and Soun burst back into the room. Their eyes wide with fright. Right behind them a giant panda carrying something over its shoulder.
"Hey, Pops," the bundle kicked and screamed. "You’re scaring ‘em spitless!"
"Daddy… this… is your friend?" Kasumi politely inquired, safely behind her father. Soun shook his head violently.
"Oh. So this panda just decided to visit!" Nabiki yelled behind of their father opposite Kasumi. "Happens all the time!"
"Akane merely sweat dropped at the whole scene.
The panda, not really paying attention to anything but his old friend, lifted its bundle and deposited it before his friend.
Everyone in the room looked at the short haired girl standing before them.
"A-Akane?" Nabiki asked.
A long haired Akane stared at a short haired Akane. Both of their eyes wide open.
"I’ll explain it once more," Soun said, seated in the greeting room. To his left sat a heavy looking man in a dirty gi with a bandana tied over his head and a young boy dressed in Chinese clothes. To his right, his daughters sat in order of age. Both men looked solemn while the boy kept glancing at the youngest with a strange expression on his face. The girls looked perplexed.
"This is my dear old friend…" Soun gestured to the other man.
"…Genma Saotome." Genma finished. "And this is my son…"
"…Ranma." Ranma looked like he wanted to say more, but the look he was receiving from Akane held his tongue.
"What’s this all about?!" Nabiki demanded. She had no idea what these two were up to, but she was sure she didn’t like it one bit.
"Did you really look like our sister?" Kasumi asked, breaking between the uneasiness between the two.
"Where should I begin?" Genma tapped his head, as if in thought. "I know."
"Hey!" Ranma shouted as he found himself flying through the air.
"What’cha do that for!" a short haired version of Akane screamed at the man from the pond.
"Now there’s two Akane’s," Kasumi, the only one able to answer, spoke into the silence.
"My own son. How humiliating," Genma shook his fists with the injustice of it all. "So humiliating."
Ranma-chan jumped up from the pond and sent her father flying with a kick.
"We’ve got to talk," Ranma pronounced as she stepped up to Akane.
"W-what do we have to talk about?" Akane asked. Not use to the surrealness of having herself demand to talk to her.
"Why the wedding, of course!" Soun broke in.
"What!" both girls shouted, creating a disturbing effect for all watching.
"As I understand it," Soun continued, turning away from the girls for a moment. "When doused with hot water, you return to human form." Soun produced and poured half the water from a kettle onto Genma. His expression when as he looked at Genma promised they would have more to say latter.
"Well, it needn’t be quite that hot," Genma replied, missing the message as he was to busy glaring back over being scolded.
"When doused with cold water, you become Akane…" Soun continued as he turned toward her.
"Actually, I’m Ranma. That’s Akane." Ranma replied further from the right.
"…But hot water turns you back into Ranma!" Soun leaps forward to pour the remaining water over the girl.
"Hot water! Not boiling!" Ranma screeches from where she landed to avoid the water. "And no matter how, er, who I look like, I am Ranma… Not Akane, Ranma!"
"No sweat." Soun replied, too cheerfully for Ranma. "Your problem isn’t so terrible after all!" He began patting neo-girl on the back.
"Huh?" Ranma looked at the man like he had a screw loose.
"My daughter Kasumi, age nineteen; Nabiki, seventeen; and Akane, sixteen." Soun presented, gesturing to each in turn. "Pick the one you want. She’s your Fiancee."
"Oh, he wants Akane!" Kasumi graciously pushed.
"Eh?" Akane turned to her older sister, too shocked by her betrayal to respond.
"Oh, definitely!" Nabiki jumped in.
"You must be joking!" Akane shouted to Nabiki, whom she was much more ready to respond to. "Why would I be…"
"Well you hate boys don’t you? And besides, there is no way we could. It would be like incest." Nabiki responded proud of the way her mind quickly found a way out.
"While for you, it’d just be the ultimate form of masturbation," Kasumi replied before she thought of what she was saying. "Oh my." Her hand quickly covered her mouth. "Let’s think clean thoughts, shall we?" She responded to herself.
"Yes, let’s," Soun replied equally surprised.
"Th-th-that’s just… so… wrong!" Akane exclaimed. Looking over at herself. ‘And so disturbing."
"Why do you turn into Akane anyway?" Nabiki asked.
"Why are you asking me?" Akane replied.
"Here sirs, we come to legendary Training Ground of Accursed Springs."
"Are you prepared, Ranma?" Genma challenged.
"This place isn’t so impressive," Ranma replied looking at the damp site.
"You very strange one, no, sir?" the guide responded. "This place very dangerous. Nobody use now." The guide turned toward the springs and gestured. "Is more than one hundred spring here…" he paused for dramatics. "… and every one will have its own tragic legend!" This was the part he loved most, building the suspense.
"Ranma, follow me!" Genma leapt from behind the guide onto one of the poles.
"Ah! Sir! What you going?" The guide shouted in fear as Ranma followed onto another pole.
"I won’t go easy on you."
"That’s how I want it."
"Please, sir! Very bad if you fall in spring!" shouted the guide. Again and again the two jumped at each other and traded blows mid-air before their momentum carried them away to another pole.
"Gotcha." Ranma smirked, as he finally managed to send his father into the waters. "Pop? What’s up? We done already?" Ranma taunted when his father didn’t immediately resurface.
The guide grew worried when the man did not reappear.
Under the surface, Genma planted his feet against the bottom. The water was to murky to make out where his son landed so he would have to be careful not to give his initial direction away. He figured he’d have half a second if he did it right and he planed on returning the favor to his son. Leaping out of the water, his glasses fell away from his face. His landing on the pole was rougher than he expected.
"Wh- wha-" was all Ranma could manage as a giant panda leaped out and took a stance across from him.
"There is tragic legend, very tragic of panda who will drown in spring in five days. Until then whoever fall in that spring take body of panda."
‘Oh no,’ Ranma thought and jumped away as the panda launched itself at him. "Wait a second! You never said anything about…" The panda managed a swipe that broke his arch, sending him down into another pool.
"Oh!" cried the guide. "Not spring of drowned tomboy!" Ranma hit the surface hard. "There is tragic legend, almost tragic tail of boyish girl who will drown in spring in one-and-a-half years." The guide made it to the pool just as Ranma broke the surface for air. "Now whoever fall in that spring take body of tomboy." Ranma grabbed the edges of her gi and looked down. "See?" Ranma falls backward with a trickle of blood at his nose.
"I did not faint when I looked at myself!" Ranma growled then bopped Genma on the head. Before Genma could respond Akane was up and punched Ranma in the back of the head. "What was that for?" Ranma turned to glare at the girl.
"That’s for being a pervert!"
"I am not a pervert!"
"You looked at my body, didn’t you!"
"This is my body!" Ranma shouted and stuck his thumb against his chest, as he had seen in a western movie. Unfortunately until he did that, he had forgot just which form he was in.
"Pervert!" Akane shouted and slapped him again for feeling himself up in front of her.
"Tomboy!" Ranma countered, holding a hand up to his face.
"Wait, you said will drown?" Nabiki broke in. Akane immediately froze at that statement.
"That’s right," Ranma replied, the serious expression from before returning to his face. "But according to the guide, all I gotta do is make sure she doesn’t go to China in one-and-a-half years. If she doesn’t drown, I’m cured."
"Then why isn’t your father cured?"
"Huh?" Ranma looked confused.
"Wasn’t the panda suppose to drown five days after you got there. Why didn’t he prevent that from occurring." Ranma looked slightly sheepish.
"Well, I wasn’t really listening to the guide at that moment. And thought I was stuck this way, so I kinda chased him all over the valley for taking me to such a stupid place to begin with. I guess he didn’t have time to find his way back before that happened."
They looked over at Ranma’s father, who had mysteriously become a panda again.
He snorted at his ungrateful son before returning his attention to the shogi board. He wasn’t about to tell his son about how he got into a fight with a panda over a lunch and wound up drowning the panda in the very spring. Especially since lunch turned out to be a cursed local boy, who quickly made his escape.
Ranma-chan made his way down the stairs, towel in hand. His thoughts racing around a certain girl with long dark hair. In the changing room he absently striped while thinking about how lucky he was to have found her. Now all he had to do was hang around her and make sure she didn’t get any crazy ideas, like going to China to swim in a mud puddle in the middle of nowhere. After tossing his boxers into the clothes basket, he took a good look at his cursed form. Being chased across main land China hadn’t giving him much time to think about his curse, other than to curse it. Now that he met the girl this body belonged to…
The door to the furo slid open revealing a nude Akane standing in the door way. Akane blinked at the sight of herself in the change room, also naked. She noted the flushed look on her face.
"Why you…" Akane began to growl. Ranma looked like a little Akane caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "Pervert!" she screamed and slapped him hard.
"Hey, I have to clean up to, ya know!" Ranma shouted, hand up to the red spot on his cheek.
"Can’t you use hot water first!"
"And then what? Want me to waste all the hot water while I’m washing up, to?"
"Fine then!" Akane replied darkly, causing Ranma to swallow unconsciously. As swiftly as she could, she grabbed the belt hanging with her robe and wrapped it around Ranma’s head. While it did cut off his sight, the show he received from the move made sure he wasn’t in the frame of mind to resist as she dragged him into the furo.
If he was going to insist upon washing up in her body, she wasn’t about to let some pervert boy handle her, -er it!
