[Ranma][FanFic] A Twisted Fate-Ch 2
Rainman
Toriyama.
A Twisted Fate
Chapter 2
First Impressions
Ranma woke up for the third time in as many minutes. Grumbling, as well as
annoyed, he glanced out the window. It was still dark with no hint of sun.
"Great. Now I can't sleep..." His tail flicked out to one side, brushing his
arm. He almost attacked it, but lowered his fist remembering that he fell
asleep in his cursed form. "Geez...I keep forgetting about the tail."
Sighing, Ranma tossed off the sheet that was draped over him and rose from the
mat. He yawned and stretched out, feeling muscles and bones groan and pop,
idly wondering where was Genma. Absently shrugging, he grabbed a pile of
clothes, then headed out of the room in his boxers and undershirt.
"Since I can't sleep, might as well execute a few katas..."
* * * * *
The clock read 4:45.
Kasumi eyed it carefully as she was lying in bed. "Fifteen minutes before the
alarm..." She sat up, taking the digital clock into her hands and deactivating
the alarm function temporarily. Peeling the covers back, she swung both legs
off the edge of the bed, but made no other move to leave her room.
"It's strange. Yesterday, I was just a housewife; today, I'm engaged to an
almost complete stranger." She sighed softly, her arms propping her forward.
"A saiyajin," she corrected herself, wondering if that was a good or bad thing.
"Well, Ranma does appear to be a very nice person, despite being a saiyajin, I
suppose...." She mind slid back to yesterday. Akane, the best fighter in the
Nerima ward, and Ranma knocked her unconscious in less than three seconds with
frightening ease. Then she was facing off against him, a housewife versus
possibly the best fighter in ever in Japan, but she wasn't afraid of
him...well, not too afraid; she was definitely nervous, though. And he was
just as gruff and frank as he had been with her youngest sister, but there was
also something else there...
Kasumi set it all aside in her mind for now. Quietly, she undressed and swept
up a rose colored robe and her bath supplies. Putting on the former and
picking up the latter, she slipped out of her room, and down the stairs.
* * * * *
"Man, that felt better," Ranma said to himself as he soaked in the hot bath.
He looked himself over. "Sure do miss my other form, though...weakness, hah.
Yeah, right, oyaji. What's so weak about being a sie...sei...sai...yajin,
anyway? I'm tons faster, stronger, more powerful than I use to be when I was
just plain, old, ordinary Ranma. If anything, being in my normal form's the
weakness....
"No matter; I got it all, now. Not only have I reach oyaji's level, I've
exceded it and then some. We aren't planning on going anywhere for a while, so
I can grow some roots. Hell, even got Kasumi for a fiancee..."
He froze in his thoughts. Kasumi, as a fiancee? And he agreed to it all too
easily? Even Genma was surprised that Ranma took matters in such stride. And
the kiss...?
He grumbled. "What the hell was I thinking?"
* * * * *
"Hmm...Akane must have gotten up earlier than usual," Kasumi noted as she spied
a gi in the clothes hamper. "I wonder how well she is doing?"
Setting down her bath stuffs, she slipped off her robe; after retrieving her
supplies, she began to walk to the bath door.
* * * * *
"She seems like a nice person. Kinda quite, though, but she gots great
potential as a fighter. Greater than cutie's; she's too stubborn to be able to
move up to the next level.. A shame she stopped training, or maybe a blessing;
if Tendo-san can't train one girl right..." He rose out of the water,
preparing to leave the bath when the door opened.
* * * * *
She just walked in, saying, "Good morning, A-" when her eyes fixated upon the
wet, naked boy just coming from the bath. He caught sight of her, too, and a
stunned silence followed. She could feel his eyes upon her, roaming up and
down her form. Not that she could blame him for looking, as she was doing the
exact same thing. A blush rippled across the bridge of her nose and spread
through her cheeks.
"...oh, my..."
"Ka-Ka-Kasumi...?" the boy stammered.
That voice, it sounded familiar, as well as he looked like she should know him.
However, it was a difficult task to recall where had she seen him from before;
the steam rising from the water gave him a dream-like quality, and there was
the matter of--
Steam? Hot water? She blinked from her stupor. "R...r...ranma...?"
He nodded dumbly.
It grew incredibly hard for her to talk then. "Oh,
my...ah...I'll...I'll...I'll just...oh, my...let you, ah...finishyourbath!"
Without waiting for a reply, she slipped out of the the bath room.
Breaking completely out of his stupor, he bolted towards her. "Kasumi, wait!"
Unfortunately, in his haste, he slipped on wet tile and sprawled on the floor,
flat on his face. He laid there for a minute unmoving, embarrassed from a lot
of things. He could sum up the entire experience in one word: "Shit."
* * * * *
Her robe put on and tied, Kasumi leaned against the wall. The blush burned in
her cheeks with a vengeance from just thinking about the incident. She could
sum up the entire experience in one word as well: "...oh...my..."
Okay, so it was two words.
* * * * *
Nabiki was never an early riser. Being awoken by the sounds of flesh rapidly
pounding on flesh, occasionally punctuated by a battle cry, rising from the
backyard did nothing to improve her mood on the matter. Groggily, she dragged
herself out of bed, grabbed her bath stuffs, and headed downstairs, still in
pajamas.
The sounds that roused her out of a good dream assaulted her ears even more
when she made it down. Bleary-eyed, Nabiki searched for the infernal source of
her new displeasure. After rubbing her eyes, she looked again.
Genma was facing off against...a blur, almost. True, the old man was moving
very fast himself, which kind of surprised Nabiki, given that he was at least
in his forties and had a large paunch, but whatever he was fighting against...
The miniature battle broke off suddenly, and she got a good look at the other
person. A young boy wearing black pants, tied at the ankles, and an
undershirt, was standing opposite of Genma, who was across the koi pond. His
pigtail floated behind his head, a smirk riding his lips. The boy then held up
one finger, then pointed downward to the cold waters of the pond. Genma
nodded, then suddenly they both leapt at each other. They met in mid-air and
engaged on combat. A few seconds later, combat ended with a splash and a small
geyser.
Nabiki blinked. The boy not only parried each of Genma's strikes with little
effort, but he continued to rise, grabbing a hold of the older man's shoulders
and inverting himself over his head before he uprighted himself in id-air and
kicked off of his back, rocketing Genma bodily into the pond. However, that
wasn't what had gotten the meticulous Tendo daughter's attention; the boy
seemed to be floating on nothing for what felt like an eternity at the height
of his ascension before landing with a soft thump where Genma had started from,
completely avoiding the gushing waters.
"Oh, my. I imagine Saotome-san will need something different for breakfast,"
Kasumi said behind Nabiki. She then produced a large plate of bamboo shoots.
Nabiki quirked an eyebrow to her older sister, but did not saything about it.
"So, who's the boy?"
"That is...Ranma-kun."
She glanced back to Kasumi, whose cheeks were tinted pink. An idea came to
her. Smiling she said, "Wow, Kasumi, aren't you two going to wait until you're
married first before you and get into that part of your relationship?" She
received a an unsettling answer when the oldest Tendo daughter turned a deeper
shade of red. "You two are already having sex so soon? He just arrived
yesterday."
Kasumi almost dropped Genma-panda's breakfast, a fact that did not go unnoticed
the middle sister. "Nabiki!!"
"I'm kidding, sis!" Inside, she was more than a little disturbed. Just what
was going on here? True, she and he were engaged, but Kasumi was old-fashioned
in her ideas about sex before marriage. Surely...
Ranma broke in. "Hey, Nabiki."
"Hello, Ranma," she replied.
"Um, do you mind...well, can I, you know, borrow, ah, Kasumi...?" He rubbed
the back of his head, a barely faint blush resting across his nose.
"Why do you need to ask for my permission, Ranma? She is your fiancee, after
all." She smiled as the boy 's blush grew a little more visible. "I was on my
way to the bath any way." She made a mental note how he and Kasumi
synchronized a deeper blush at the mention of "bath." "See you two later."
She left Kasumi and Ranma alone.
"Um..." Ranma began. "About...about this morning..." Absently, he rubbed the
back of his head again.
"That...it was...my fault..." she said, still holding the tray with bamboo
shoots.
He blinked. "Huh?"
"I saw a gi...and I assumed it was Akane's...and...and I'm sorry, if I caused
you any embarrassment." She held her lower. "I'm sorry, Ranma-kun..."
Ranma blinked again. "Um, no, no, nothin' to be sorry about...I mean we're
engaged and stuff, so...what's the problem with seein' each other naked?"
She looked up, a little surprised.
He continued on, not noticing. "I mean, it's not like you need to be ashamed
of how you look and all...you're pretty, and..." This time, he noticed a blush
spreading across the oldest daughter's features. "...ah, sorry, I, I, I..."
Oddly enough, the confidence he had last night fled from him like a wraith in
sunlight.
"No, Ranma-kun, it's all right. I...I just never had someone compliment me
like that."
"Is that a good thing?"
Kasumi laughed softly. "Yes, Ranma-kun, it is." She kissed him on his
forehead. "Now, hurry and clean up for breakfast." She thought for a moment,
then added, "After Nabiki is finished with her bath."
He smiled. "Sure thing."
Kasumi smiled back, then went back into the kitchen, humming a light tune. As
soon as she was inside, she stopped her tune, placed the bamboo shoots on the
counter, then pressed a finger to her lower lip. "I wonder what came over me
then..." After a second, she put it to the back of her mind and continued
humming as she went on to finish cooking breakfast.
* * * * *
[That's my son! No woman can resist the Saotome charm!]
"Oh, shut up, oyaji."
[We must get you two married as soon as--] The panda found itself submerged in
the koi pond again.
"Don't interfere, oyaji. Understand?"
"....growrrf...."
"Good; now get out of the pond. You're scaring all the fish in there."
"Growrf."
"After Nabiki's done."
* * * * *
Nabiki headed to the bath room after Ranma and Kasumi went to their respective
places.
"Congratulations, Ranma. My respect for you just went up quite a few notches."
With that, she pushed in the bath door.
* * * * *
"Is this the place?"
"I think so. This was the direction Ranma went and he is Japanese."
"So you deduced from that that this Ranma went overseas to Japan? How astute
an observation coming from you...who knew a brain so small was capable of
coming to a conclusion so big?"
"How dare you speak of my Shampoo like that, Tarou?! If you weren't needed for
this reconnaissance mission, I'd-" He fell suddenly, most likely from the blow
that came from a bonbori.
"Shut up, Mousse. I am perfectly capable of speaking for myself."
"Bet he never saw that one coming," Tarou said, chuckling. "Then again, I bet
he never sees much of anything without his glasses."
She regarded him coolly. "As for you..."
He smirked coldly. "I really hope you don't think you can scare me with your
posturing. You and I know I can drop you like a sack of wheat, no problem, and
in either form. Personally, I don't give a damn about you, Myopic Boy, or your
village. I'm only here for one thing; after I get it, I'll finally be able to
get my name changed."
Shampoo merely glared at him and said no more on that subject. "So, how do we
find Ranma?"
"Easy." Without preamble, he held up a black book. "We use the Jusenkyo
Registry."
"How did you get that?"
"I swiped it from the Guide while we were there. Now, wake that blind idiot
up, and let's go. We're going to catch a boat to Japan."
Tarou left for the dock. Shampoo stared off the distance across the ocean,
where the sun was just creeping over the horizion. "Soon, Ranma...we will meet
again..."
Turning back to the prone form of Mousse, she kicked him just hard enough to
rouse him, then lead him to the shipyard.
End Ch. 2
Wondering what's going on here, as there's a Tarou lurking about? You'll
find out soon enough in later chapters....
What happened to Akane? Well, she doesn't really want to face anyone just
yet after feeling so embarrassed, and I wrote it as such. She'll definitely
be in the next chapter, so don't worry.
C&C and donations all to raem...@aol.com
Why does a dog wag its tail? Because the dog is smarter than its tail.
However, what if the tail was smarter than the dog?
-opening quote from Wag the Dog