[Ranma][Fanfic] Destiny's Wish, Part Twenty-Nine
Mike Koos
Ranma intentionally dragged her feet as she trudged along the
forest trail with Ayumi in tow. They'd spent the better part of four
days searching for Ranma's father, a search that had taken them from
the streets of the Nerima area to the depths of the mountains and
forests, and had yet to find Saotome Genma... though Ranma's 'hiking
outfit' - a thick pullover sweater and canvas shorts, with a wide
headband and knee-high socks as additional touches - were starting to
show the wear and tear of Ranma and Ayumi having had to push their
way through what had seemed at the time like several dozen acres of
ridiculously overgrown brush. Ayumi, on the other hand, wore a
relatively disposable T-shirt and jeans. They hadn't expected the
search to take *this* long...
And just what in the world was it they were accomplishing by all
this wandering around? Nothing, probably. One of the running jokes
Ranma had been keeping to herself was that Ryomi, with her pathetic
sense of direction, might have an infinitely better chance of
stumbling upon the old man than either of them.
She most likely wouldn't recognize him, either. No, she'd ask
him for directions to Tokyo or the Tendo Dojo and then go right back
to being miserably lost, just like Ranma felt she and Ayumi were on
the verge of becoming.
For fun - or perhaps out of sheer boredom, Ranma didn't feel
like worrying about the issue at the moment - she let her thoughts
drift back to the past.
Genma had been missing for close to three weeks, having left
practically right after Ranma told everyone her mother was about to
pay a surprise visit. No matter what grudges Nodoka, Ranma and the
Tendos might have held against the man, however, it wasn't long at
all before they had each begun to worry about him.
Ranma volunteered to search for her father and bring him back...
but then her mother and Soun insisted on having Ayumi go along with
her. "Ranma is your iinazuke," Soun reminded Ayumi after his
youngest son protested. "It is your duty to face all challenges
alongside her and protect her from harm."
She'd frowned; whenever anyone started discussing her
prearranged marriage to Ayumi, Ranma inexplicably became a
defenseless girl needing Ayumi to protect her in the adults' eyes.
No amount of griping on her part was going to change that, so she
preferred to wait for the more important parts of the argument to
make her displeasure and anger known.
For now, she gave her 'Uncle' a dubious look. "I don't need him
along. I can take care of myself."
"Now, Ranma," her mother said. "Mr. Tendo is right. I
acknowledge the fact that your father has trained you to be able to
fend for yourself, but regardless of that fact, you are still
obligated to have Ayumi-kun accompany you."
"But..."
"Ranma."
Ranma let out a soft sigh and inclined her head. Saotome Nodoka
was one of the few people she could not bring herself to argue with.
"Yes, Mother."
Destiny's Wish
Part Twenty-Nine: One Big, Happy Family
written by Mike Koos
------------------------
Fade back to the present. Ayumi glanced up, noticing that Ranma
was once more getting farther and farther ahead of him. "Hey! Wait
up!" he called to her. Ranma slowed her pace until he was walking
alongside her.
He'd been upset, understandably, over being forced to join the
search for Mr. Saotome; the man was Ranma's father and not a true
relative of his, even though Ranma called his father 'Uncle' and Soun
kept trying to push the idea. Genma - who considered himself head of
the Saotome family - was a lazy, freeloading mooch, for all intents
and purposes.
Before he had disappeared, Ranma had told her father that she
never wanted to speak to him again... because he had told Ranma up
until that day that her mother had passed away - which, of course,
Nodoka hadn't. So why had Ranma volunteered so readily to look for
the man, if she wanted nothing to do with him? Certainly, the elders
would have seized the opportunity to give her a speech about being
obligated to look for him, since he *was* her father. But she'd
volunteered before that could happen... which meant she had her own
reasons for wanting to find her father. Ayumi wondered what those
reasons could be.
Of course, the most likely explanation was that Ranma still
wanted to pound the old man into the ground for what he'd done to her
all those years. Ayumi knew *he* would be upset if his father had
lied to him about his mother being deceased, had done his best to
keep her influence out of her sons' lives... but Tendo Soun wasn't a
blatant, practiced liar and an opportunist like Ranma's father.
Well... maybe Mr. Saotome wasn't that much of an opportunist.
That made him sound like Naka, and that gave the old man more credit
than he was due.
"I'll say it again: after all the guy's done to you and everyone
else, are you sure we can't just leave him wherever he is?"
Ranma snorted in response to Ayumi's question. "You know what
our parents would say about that. I'd rather have him where we can
all keep an eye on him. And anyway..." She turned her head to glance
at him. "...How much you wanna bet this is my Mom's and your Dad's
way of getting us to spend some time together?"
He hesitated; that possibility hadn't quite occurred to him.
But then Ranma did have a wilder imagination than his... and on
occasion, jumped to conclusions more readily than him. This wasn't a
plan he'd put past their elders, though. "So what - you wanna split
up or something?"
"Nah... if I've got to suffer, so do you! Besides, you'd
probably get lost."
"Hmph. I think you're confusing me with that stupid pig of
yours." <Ryomi,> Ayumi amended mentally. Ranma had been so
delighted to find the little P-chan waiting for her when she returned
from her visit to her mother's. He hadn't had the heart to tell her
about Ryomi then, either.
This time, Ranma wasn't taking any chances that her pet would
get lost while she was away. She'd left P-chan in the care of
Kasuga; hopefully, the little pig would be there when they returned
from this trip.
"Stupid pig?" Ranma scoffed. "You're one step away from having
a certain cat wrapped around your little finger, and you're picking
on my pet?"
Speaking of jumping to conclusions...
"It's not like I WANT her to drool over me like that!" the boy
protested.
"Then why do you keep encouraging her?" Ranma persisted. At
least she didn't have to worry about Ryomi... the baka couldn't even
recognize Ryomi had developed feelings for him. That left Shampoo to
contend with...
"What makes you think I'm encouraging her?"
Ranma already had her answer readied for use. "You're sure not
doing much to *stop* her, you know!"
"*What*!?" blurted Ayumi. "I'm doing everything I can to stop
her--"
"Which still isn't much," an unconvinced Ranma finished his
sentence for him.
"Speak for yourself! YOU just ran away from her!"
"Yeah, after diplomacy didn't work!"
"Huh?"
The cursed girl wore an expressionless look on her face. "We
did try to reason with her, you know. It didn't work."
"I know, I know," Ayumi let his arms drop to his sides in a
gesture of resignation. If anything, Shampoo was very persistent and
never gave up. Those would have been good qualities to have - except
that they were being used to make Ayumi her husband whether he wanted
to be or not.
There was a slight pause before Ranma next spoke. "Admit it -
you aren't trying hard enough because you *like* having her chase
after you!"
"WHAT!? Oh, *shut up*, would you? You've got no idea what
you're talking about!" What did his ego have to do with this?
"Like heck I don't!" She waved a hand before her as though
implying she could turn it into a fist at any second if she wanted
to. "Geez, all you'd have to do is *ask* her to do something for you
and she'd do it. I mean, she follows you around like a lonely little
puppy!"
<This from the girl who keeps a pig as a pet.> Ayumi smirked.
"Oh, so you're jealous," he said, knowingly.
Ranma angrily turned back around to face him. "I AM NOT!!"
"Yes, you *are*!"
"No, I'm NOT!" She advanced toward Ayumi. How *dare* the
pervert think she was jealous of that... of Shampoo!
"Yes, you ARE!"
But before Ranma could get close enough to Ayumi to help him see
exactly how jealous she was of Shampoo, a large black bear burst
forth from the bushes in the middle of the path between them and
menacingly raised itself to full height.
Extremely startled, both Ranma and Ayumi stumbled backward and
landed on their rears. Only once they had calmed themselves down did
they realize the bear *hadn't* made a sound, but was instead holding
up a thin plank of a wooden sign that had the word "GROWL!!!" painted
across it in a familiar script.
They both frowned and took to staring intently at the bear. Now
that she thought about it, wasn't that fresh *paint* covering the
spots of fur that would normally be a different color on a certain
other type of bear? Ranma wondered.
Noting their stares, the seemingly embarrassed bear hid the sign
and tried another menacing growl... though all the bear could manage
were the exact same noises Genma could ever make as a panda.
Ranma place-kicked the disguised panda into the treetops. "YOU
ARE *SO* PATHETIC!!"
Genma noticed to his disdain that his daughter and Ayumi had
already made themselves at home at his campsite by the time he
returned from attempting to wash the paint off him. How stupid of
him to use latex paint instead of something that would wash out
easily... knowing full well the paint would still be on him when he
reverted back to his Human form.
They had gone so far as to take two of the last packs of cup
ramen out of his supplies - Ranma's idea, no doubt, since she'd done
it so many times in the past. That was fair, as more often than not
he had already taken her meals...
There was only one reason why Ranma would have come. "I'm
sorry, Ranma, but I cannot go back with you," he said, hoping to beat
Ranma to the punch.
She barely paid attention to him. "Because of Mom?" Ranma
snorted. "She's not going to kill you. And neither am I."
"I never doubted it in the least, my daughter." Genma relaxed
somewhat. The smile had returned to his face.
"That doesn't mean I've forgiven you."
For a moment he couldn't say anything in response; Ranma's tone
told him she thoroughly meant what she had said. She was liable to
hold this grudge against him for a long time, longer than any other
grudge she had ever held against him. Ah, the sacrifices one had to
make to be a martial artist... "Very good. For a moment, I was
afraid your mother's influence might have caused you to go soft."
Ayumi understood that Genma was merely goading Ranma again, but
chose to keep silent. He knew hardly anything would keep Ranma from
losing her temper over this - and she did, though not as much as he'd
expected.
"*You're* the soft one, Dad. All you do is lie around all day,
eat and sleep. Even Ayumi could take you on."
"Hey!" Ayumi groused, his train of thought broken.
Ranma flashed him a smirk that warned she wouldn't mean what she
was about to say. "No offense."
"Hmph."
The look that surfaced on Genma's face, however, clearly
indicated he was about to spring another lunatic idea on his daughter
and her iinazuke.
"So, both of you believe you're more than enough to take me on,
hmm? I seriously doubt that."
Okay, Ayumi figured, so maybe he was falling for the ruse as
well. "Now, just a minute! I never said anything about wanting to
get involved in this argument! Besides, Ranma's got a point. You
don't put your fighting skills to the test anywhere as much as we do,
so you can't seriously believe you're in any shape to win a fight
against either of us."
"Asking for it, aren't you, baka?" Ranma whispered in an aside
to him.
"Huh?"
"I see," Genma said, smugly. "Well, I appreciate your giving me
the opportunity to prove you wrong!" He leapt over the fire toward
Ayumi, who dodged by springing to his left - but at the cost of his
cup of soup, which came inches from spilling over the campfire and
putting it out. At the same time, Ranma sprang upward, her cup of
instant ramen momentarily spared.
"Your reflexes are slow, boy. Ranma would never fall prey to
that tactic!" Genma taunted Ayumi.
Ranma was surprised that her father would actually pay her such
a compliment, even if it *was* only to trick Ayumi into fighting him.
To prove his point, Genma attacked her directly. Ranma
sidestepped him, leapt over his next swipe, and ended up standing on
his head - all the while nonchalantly continuing to eat her ramen.
"See?"
Ayumi hated it whenever anyone suggested Ranma was a better
fighter than him. Especially when Ranma *did* come close to being a
better fighter. What was worse, was that Genma was complimenting the
tomboy's fighting skills *without* the enhancements she'd gained of
late. For one who liked to believe he was one of the greatest
fighters in the world, promoting a girl over him was always a great
blow to his ego.
He charged - but as he neared Genma, the older man dived out of
the way... causing Ranma to come crashing down from her perch onto
Ayumi.
Ranma pulled herself up, the styrofoam cup and noodles draped in
a highly undignified manner about her head. She was grateful that
the water from the cup had been hot, though having previously-boiled
water dumped on her was never an enjoyable experience. Okay, fine.
If that was how the old man wanted to run this fight...
She tossed both her cup and the noodles at him as a distraction,
then charged, swinging her mallet vengefully into her father's
chest. Genma was sent spiraling into a thicker patch of trees.
"Ranma, you know how I feel about that mallet of yours..." That
he felt the pain from being hit with Ranma's infamous mallet was
obvious in the strain with which he tries to reprimand her. Ayumi
felt sorry for him in that regard; he was the most frequent victim of
Ranma's anger these days, more or less, including her idiotic mallet.
Ranma cradled her mallet in one hand, smirking. "There's no
rule that says I can't use it. YOU'RE the one who's always saying we
should be ready for *any* type of attack."
Genma exhaled. "Point taken. However, you should refrain from
using it in this fight. It gives you an unfair advantage over Ayumi."
<Excuse me?>
"Fine." Ranma put the mallet away. <Anything to give the baka
an advantage.>
"Now, attack me again!" the command came.
Ayumi psyched himself up. "Okay, old man! You asked for it!"
He loosed several rapid-fire punches toward Genma - though not as
fast as if he'd been able to utilize the speed of the Kachuu Tenshin
Amaguriken, obviously; he regretted never having devoted time after
returning to his proper form to perfecting the technique, especially
not that he didn't have the speed of a temporarily-altered body to
fall back on, and that Ryomi - who emphasized strength over speed -
was back to being faster than him. The problem was that he'd never
brought himself to do it for some reason he couldn't quite deduce.
He would be forced to improve his speed *somehow*, sooner or later...
He concluded his attack with a high roundhouse kick aimed for
Genma's face.
All of his strikes missed their intended targets.
"Allow me," Ranma intervened. Her hands and feet blurred as she
sent a random array of high-speed punches and kicks Genma's way in an
effort to catch the elder Saotome off-guard.
An amazed Ayumi watched. He hadn't seen Ranma in a 'true' fight
or put her fighting abilities to the test since she'd proven she had
learned the Tenshin Amaguriken. These attacks, Genma found it harder
to dodge.
"Can't say... I'm going soft... now, ...can you, Dad?"
Genma was tempted to agree with her, yet decided it was better
to reserve his judgment until the end of the fight. Ranma was being
overconfident and putting all her force into her strikes. That could
be countered. When Ranma concentrated on her punches, he ducked
below them and swept the girl's feet out from under her.
Ranma was sent tumbling forward. "You are not concentrating on
the fight, Ranma," he admonished her.
Ayumi allowed himself the luxury of a tight smile, something
along the lines of Naka's near-feline grins. <Of course she isn't.
She's still mad at you! *I'm* the one concentrating on the fight,
so...>
He dove toward Genma's feet in the hope that Genma would react
the way he wanted and leap upward to avoid the move. Genma did;
Ayumi reached the spot where the man had stood and rebounded upward
to intercept him. He maneuvered his body to the point where he could
bring a foot around to strike his opponent and connected. The tactic
had worked, but not by much. Genma was better prepared to withstand
his strikes than Ranma's.
They landed apart from each other at the same time, though
Ayumi's 'landing' came in the form of a handstand. He executed a
double-backwards flip to put slightly more distance in between him
and Genma. The old man could be dangerous enough if given the need
to be. Ranma carried similar traits, since Genma had been her
primary influence and martial-arts instructor while growing up. And
if given the chance, Ranma was most certainly a force to be reckoned
with.
How did the old man do it? Genma hardly ever 'worked out' as
far as anyone could tell. He lounged around whenever he was home,
which was often most of the day, merely eating, sleeping and playing
his ridiculous little shogi matches with Soun - in which both of them
cheated, in one way or another. Soun seemed to put more effort into
what was left of his routine than Genma, if only because he still
taught the students of the Tendo School of Musabetsu Kakutou what
they needed to know.
Now, the only ones who routinely practiced, who kept their
skills in frequent training, were Ranma and Ayumi. But somehow,
Genma managed to maintain his edge as a fighter.
Ayumi was aware Ranma could put off practicing for a while and
not lose her edge... even though she wouldn't want to. Perhaps that
was also true of her father. It was the gentleman's way, never to
fight a girl. That was the reason Ayumi had never *truly* sparred
with Ranma. Genma, on the other hand, was a man. No problems or
conditions keeping him from fighting the elder Saotome...
Not even Ranma. She was upset enough with her father that she
likely wouldn't mind Ayumi getting in a few good strikes of his own.
Still... she was too driven by anger and principle to think
clearly... however, Ranma was even more dangerous when she wasn't
thinking clearly, so it was difficult to tell just how much Ranma
would contribute to this fight.
Best, then, to let Ranma serve as a ready-made distraction
without telling her. He didn't trust her ability to intentionally
act as a distraction. Something, some memory told him Ranma might
just be a better actor than him, but he elected to disregard it. He
was the best when it came to comparing himself and Ranma as
individuals, wasn't he?
Before Genma could comment on Ayumi's move, Ranma charged him
again. Precisely the kind of tactic Ayumi had been hoping she would
resort to. <Perfect,> he thought, resisting the urge to smirk.
The only problem with Ranma fighting her father directly was
that they tended to take their fight everywhere all at once. It
didn't take either of them long to start rebounding here and there
from various parts of the foliage - a rock here, the trunk of a tree
or low-hanging branch there. Which left Ayumi with fewer openings to
launch his own attack... he soon realized that he'd just have to
estimate as best he could, and impose himself in Genma's path.
Father and daughter bounced closer and closer to the stream
which Ayumi had seen on their way to the campsite. <Oh, *great*.>
Ayumi knew he had to act now and intercept them; the pair had an
unfortunate tendency to blunder - *somehow* - into cold water
whenever it was available. If there was a source of cold water to be
found within a two-mile radius, chances were that Ranma or any of the
other victims of the Jhusenkyou curse would soon find themselves
coming in contact with it. Maybe *that* was part of the curse... not
content with allowing its victims to get into trouble on their own
with water, the curse also somehow managed to draw cold water to the
victim.
He'd been cursed for a month, himself, and could almost attest
to that.
Ayumi calculated, springing up into what he hoped would be the
path of Mr. Saotome's latest bounce.
He hadn't counted on the man suddenly disappearing after he got
there.
All that remained was Ranma, whose eyes widened in abrupt panic
as she saw that a mid-air collision between her and Ayumi was
unavoidable. They promptly collided and fell, straight downward, to
the rock-hard ground.
Ranma staggered away from Ayumi and dropped to her knees,
cradling her head with one hand. "Oww...... what've you got in that
head? A block of steel?" This would have been a good time for
mentioning that she'd always said he had a thick skull - if the pain
from colliding with the baka hadn't kept her from thinking clearly.
"Go jump in a lake," Ayumi said dryly while searching for his
breath. Surprisingly, that was a retort Ranma particularly disliked,
and Ayumi wasn't completely sure why.
Genma took his time in strolling over to them and stood a few
feet apart from them while they recovered. "Mmm," he studied the
two fighters. "The two of you make rather pathetic fighters. Had
you bothered to work together, you might have stood a chance of
defeating me. Your easy defeat only proves that you need many, many
more years of training to even come near my level." His boasting
complete, Genma broke into his customary belly laugh.
Ranma met Ayumi's gaze. Oh, they'd come closer to defeating the
old man than he was willing to admit. A *lot* closer. As for his
'level,' Ranma felt she had surpassed that a long time ago.
They waited until the elder Saotome had finished laughing to
stride up to him and punt him into the river the Saotome duo had come
dangerously close to falling into during the fight. Genma changed
immediately into a panda, flailing uselessly for a few seconds - much
to Ranma and Ayumi's amusement - and finally hit his head against a
rock, slipping into unconsciousness.
Ranma shrugged. "I guess I'd better get the old fool," she
sighed wearily.
Ayumi shook his head. "I'll do it." He waded into the river
before Ranma could object. "Wouldn't want you to get wet."
"What difference does it make?"
"We're not going to have time to heat any water if we wanna get
*him* home before he wakes up. Right?" the boy grabbed a handful of
the fur at the back of Genma's neck and used it to drag him out of
the water.
Ranma folded her arms in resignation. "Yeah. Don't want to
give him the chance to run away again, huh?"
** ** **
Within the relative safety of the family room in the Tendo
household, Ranma preoccupied herself with taking a slow sip from her
can of soda, paging through the TV listings... anything to keep her
mind off what could very well be happening during a long period of
silence - such as the one everyone except her mother and father were
enjoying now.
She and Ayumi had raced straight home after fishing Genma out of
the river. Genma hadn't come to until they had crossed the Nerima
limits, but by then Ranma had already taken the time to bound him
tight with the ropes and chains she'd brought in her pack for just
such an eventuality. Once they'd brought him home, they had tossed
the bound panda into the dojo - where Nodoka waited - with a
teakettle of hot water.
No one had heard anything from neither Nodoka nor Genma since
then, however, and it disturbed the remainder of the group.
Ranma took in the scene before her. An anxious Soun sat in his
usual place at the table, pretending not to be concerned. Ayumi was
busy alternating between trying to watch the television whenever Naka
wasn't flipping through the channels in boredom, and drinking his own
can of soda beside her; Kasuga sat opposite his father, seemingly
lost in thought. <I wonder what he's thinking?>
As far as any of them knew, Nodoka and Genma were currently
'talking,' discussing matters, in the dojo. There hadn't been any
signs of a fight or any voices raised high enough for anyone in the
family room to hear.
Naka risked clearing his throat. "They've been out there a long
while. How can we be sure they're all right?" He hesitated. "Mrs.
Saotome *did* take her sword with her."
"...She's probably only using it as a threat to keep Dad in
line," Ranma said, her voice distant.
Naka blinked. <This has really got to be hard on her...>
"Maybe. But if she's as mad at him as you were..."
Nodoka's voice came to them from the hallway. "I have faith in
our abilities as adults to resolve matters without resorting to
violence." She entered the room with a penitent Genma trailing
behind her, a sight that startled everyone.
"I'm sorry," apologized Naka.
Nodoka nodded. "No; you were right to worry. After all the
things my husband has done to each of us, it's only natural to expect
us to be furious with him."
Soun cast an expressionless gaze at his friend. "I presume the
two of you have come to an agreement?" He hoped that was the case.
Genma had always been his good friend, even keeping in mind that the
head of the Saotome clan wasn't always truthful and blatantly cheated
at many things, shogi being the least of those. But if that was
grounds enough to end a friendship, Genma could have said the same of
Soun long ago. They *were* both only Human... well, as long as one
discounted things like Jhusenkyou curses, anyway. Soun didn't want
to see their longtime friendship ended because of Genma's foolish
mistakes.
Ranma's eyes widened expectantly.
"We have," Nodoka stated in the same neutral tone. "However, I
would like to discuss it in private, not in front of the children.
Particularly Ranma."
The four teenagers showed varied levels of disappointment - but
none so much as Ranma, who had hoped for a resolution most of all.
Her expression fell slightly.
Nodoka softened when she saw her daughter's reaction. "I'm
sorry, Ranma. All you need to concern yourself with for now, is that
the three of us are a complete family, again." She crossed the room
to give Ranma a quick hug. "Right, dear?" Nodoka asked Genma.
There was no denying the dual edge to her words.
Genma appeared to shrink back in on himself for an instant.
"Absolutely," he mumbled.
Naka leaned closer to Ayumi and gestured toward the Saotome
family with his chin. "So... is this a good or bad thing?" All his
brother could offer in response was a shrug.
(end)
------------
Credits:
Written by: Mike Koos
Pre-readers: Richard Beaubien, Jonathan Ng, Tom Williams, David Wills
With apologies to Takahashi Rumiko...
All parts of this series are available at the RAAC archives at
ftp://ftp.cs.ubc.ca/pub/archive/anime-fan-works
or from my WWW pages at
http://www.anime.usacomputers.net/~makoto/index.htm
Comments and questions welcome.
*****************************
* Mike ('Kino Makoto') Koos * "I can do nothing to stop you.
*---------------------------* Your background music is too
* email: mak...@mother.com * strong for me."
***************************** - Whose Line is it Anyway?
www: http://www.anime.usacomputers.net/~makoto/index.htm