Takahashi Soup
by Black Dragon

Well, it's chapter 2, and I have inexplicably managed to hold onto my resolve not to add new main characters. Technically. The old lady doesn't count as a new character.
In lieu of an actual disclaimer, I'd like to make a note here. It seems to me that several of my readers have understandably neglected to look at the revision of Takahashi Soup. I advise that they do so, as it has a rather vital change applied to it. Namely, the removal of one of the main characters, and a replacement plot involving aliens. Just a heads up.
I'd also like to give a heads up to Kwak Jun, who mailed me twice so far commenting on this story. I received your e-mail, but every response is sent back to me with some vague error message. I don't think I can reply to your address. Sorry.

Chapter 2
Love, Hate, and Oreos
**********************************************************************************

"But Nabiki! Kasumi! It's just not fair!" Akane pleaded, almost in tears with frustration. "Why should I have to marry him?"
Nabiki shrugged as she watched TV, seemingly oblivious to Akane's distress. "I dunno. Because we were quick enough to get out of it, and you weren't quick enough to counter?"
Kasumi's smile seemed a bit strained. Not because she was angry or upset with anyone, but more because she had had time for the full reality of the situation to grow on her conscience. "Now Akane, Ataru doesn't seem... THAT bad..."
Nabiki held back a snicker. "Kasumi, PLEASE, don't even try. Before she loses whatever faith she still has in you."
Kasumi kept going however, even as Akane fumed at her. "At least he seems very affectionate. And he does seem to really like you-"
"-And your breasts, legs, and tight little butt," Nabiki teased, causing Akane to start twitching.
"-and Ataru really does seem to want to make this relationship work," Kasumi finished, a sweatdrop on her head.
"-So that he can finally get to the honeymoon," Nabiki added playfully.
"Nabiki, you're not helping at all," Kasumi complained, "I'm trying to help Akane see the bright side of this."
Nabiki rolled her eyes. "And thus it falls to me to help Akane see reality." She then reached across the dining room table and poked Akane, who had her head down while silently contemplating her misery.
She raised her head at Nabiki's prodding. "Reality, huh?" She said in a dreary voice.
Nabiki nodded sharply. "Right. These are the facts: Ataru is a despicable pervert and the personification of everything you hate about boys. There is no way, despite all the clueless optimism that Kasumi can dredge up, that you will 'warm up to him'. There is, likewise, no way that you'll convince Daddy of this and get the engagement officially dropped on your own."
Akane took a long look at her sister, then lowered her head again and sighed. "So suicide really is the only answer, huh?"
Nabiki and Kasumi blanched.
"No! No! That's not what I'm saying!" Nabiki insisted. Calming down, she went on. "I was just getting to the other little fact that realistically, nobody can MAKE you go through with this."
Akane blinked. "Go on..."
"I mean, even if everyone on the planet says you're married, ultimately, if you don't want to act like a wife, then you don't act like a wife, right?"
Akane nodded. "Go on..."
"And certainly, nobody can force you to let this creep have his way with you."
Akane nodded again. "Go on..."
Finally, Nabiki shrugged. "So, if he touches you, just give 'em the old one-two. He'll either take the hint and back off, or you'll kill him. Either way, Daddy will HAVE to recognize that the engagement just isn't going to work out."
Akane looked fascinated. "Go on..."
Nabiki blinked. "Uh... that's it. There's nothing more to it than that."
Akane nodded again while scratching her chin. "Go on..."
"Akane, are you all right? You seem a bit dazed," Kasumi asked worriedly.
Akane shook her head a bit to snap herself out of it. "Sorry. I guess I'm just a bit tired. I should get some sleep." She smiled at Nabiki. "Thanks Nabiki! Good night!" Giving a short wave to her sisters, she walked out of the room and began to ascend the stairs.

"Wait a minute," Akane said to herself, stopping. "...... Did Nabiki just get herself off the hook for trapping me with that guy by telling me to stop complaining and deal with it?"
She frowned and glanced back down the stairs. Then she shook her head.
"Oh, the heck with it. I just want some sleep."
The young woman trudged up to her room and slammed the door shut behind her.
Once on the other side of the doorway, she yawned mightily and stretched, preparing herself for a night of rest after a day of panic and misery.
*Shoooo* *Wham!*
"Gyah!" Akane jumped forward as a huge steel wall slid down from nowhere and hit the floor behind her.
Spinning around in panic, she found that that entire side of the room was completely cut off.
*Shoooo* *Wham!*
"Gyaeee!" Jumping up in surprise again, Akane turned to see that another wall had slid down over the wall that faced outside, and more importantly, possessed a window.
"Heh heh heh... surprised, my dear fiancee?"
Akane squeaked in fright as she heard the voice in her room, and slowly backed herself into the steel barrier that kept her from the hall door.
Suddenly, but not quite unexpectedly, Ataru burst from her closet, breaking the door down and throwing a number of dresses and blouses all over the room.
"Surprise!" Ataru yelled maliciously, chuckling with an insane edge.
"A... Ataru..." Akane mumbled quietly. Then a vein appeared on her head, and she pointed angrily to the large steel barricades covering any possible escape route. "What the hell are these?!"
Ataru stopped chuckling and blinked. He turned to look at the large plate of steel covering the window. Then he turned back to look at Akane. "So, is this a trick question, or what?"
Akane grit her teeth as her battle aura began to build. "How did they get here, and what are they for?"
Ataru grinned and crossed his arms over his chest. "Why, I put them in, of course."
Akane's battle aura winked out. "Wait... you installed retractable blast doors in my room while I was downstairs talking to my sisters?"
Ataru nodded. "Plus a trap door in front of the bathroom toilet." He scratched his chin thoughtfully as he looked up at the ceiling. "Come to think of it, I'm not really sure why I did that. I mean, I nearly killed myself trying to saw through the plumbing like that... bored, I guess."
He stopped suddenly and coughed into his fist before leering openly at Akane. "As for what they're for, they're to keep out any..." Ataru idly twirled a finger around in the air as he fished about for the right word, "unwanted interruptions." His grin became wider and decidedly more malevolent. "And conveniently, they also serve to trap you in here with me while I have my way with you!"
Akane paled considerably, and began to tremble as she backed into the steel wall. There was no way out!
"N-No... no... NO!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"
__________________________________________________________________________________

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Akane screamed, jerking herself upright and throwing her sheets, which now almost perfectly matched her face, over the edge of her bed.
Her pajamas clung to a sheen of sweat that had developed over her entire body, but she felt as if someone had just dumped a wheelbarrow of snow on her.
'Oh, thank God... it was just a nightmare...'
Ataru blinked. "Oh. It looks like you're already awake."
__________________________________________________________________________________

*KAPOW!!* *CRASH!!!*
Kasumi stumbled as the entire house shook violently, and gasped as her tea tray pitched forward along with her, threatening to spill the exquisitely prepared refreshment all over the floor.
*Chingk* The tray went flat, shaking the tea cups slightly as equilibrium was unexpectedly restored. Likewise, Kasumi quickly regained her balance as a strong hand took hers and held her up.
Ranma sighed, holding Kasumi up with one hand and the tea tray with the other. "I TOLD you that asking Ataru to get Akane up would be a bad idea."
Nabiki got up and stepped into the backyard, craning her neck to look up. "Wow. Good altitude." Ataru was apparently too high for her to make out, but in blasting through the ceiling, attic, and then the roof itself, he had managed to build up a considerable dust trail that marked his path into the stratosphere.
After making sure Kasumi wasn't going to fall, Ranma placed the tray of tea on the table and sat down. "Well, at least she can take care of herself. That makes my job easier."
Nabiki smirked. "What, are you always keeping track of your brother and keeping him out of trouble?"
"You laugh," Ranma muttered, "but if I don't, who will?"
Nabiki shrugged, still smirking. "Ever think it might be more trouble than it's worth?"
Ranma snorted. " I KNOW it's more trouble than it's worth." Then he sighed. "But I can't just stand by and do nothing. He's my brother, you know?"
Nabiki nodded as if she sympathized, but the fact that she was still smirking ruined the effect. "Ah, yes, I understand. No matter how often, painful, or stupid, you'll always be by your brother's side." She clasped her hands over her chest and sighed melodramatically. "Ah, brotherly love! How moronic!"
Ranma stared at her expressionlessly. "I'll bet you just have a ball Friday nights, spending all evening alone with that great personality of yours." He turned away and took a sip of tea.
Nabiki blinked rapidly, and then her eyes narrowed. "Clever."
"Well, you did make it awfully easy for me," he said casually, not even looking back at her.
As Nabiki fumed, Kasumi put down her own tea from where she was sitting across from Ranma. "Well, I think it's sweet that Ranma cares about his brother like that."
Despite her smile, Ranma couldn't help but groan. "PLEASE don't describe it as 'sweet'..." He gulped down the rest of his tea, and then let out a deep breath as he put the cup down. "Incoming."
"Huh?" Nabiki mumbled, "What are you-"
*WHAM!!* A huge blast of dirt erupted into the sky from the back yard, and the house shook slightly once again at the high-speed impact.
"Wow, this tea is really good. Can I have some more?" Ranma asked Kasumi, smiling.
Kasumi sweatdropped as she nodded and poured Ranma some more tea, a bit shaken.
Ranma turned toward the back yard. "Hey Ataru, you okay?"
"Eh, I'll be fine," Ataru muttered, pushing himself up off the ground a bit uneasily. "She didn't have to hit me," he muttered, "I didn't even touch her or nothin'..."

"The boy has a remarkable constitution, Saotome," Soun said appraisingly, rubbing his chin.
Genma nodded sagely from where he sat across from Soun. They had already finished breakfast, and were watching everything from the back porch. "Indeed, Tendo, indeed. Conditioned by years of being beaten to a pulp in training and suffering romantic rejections too numerous to count, Ataru has become nigh invincible, physically and emotionally." Genma smirked and turned toward his old friend. "He'll make a perfect husband for Akane!"
"Because he's a stable bulwark that can withstand all the possible challenges of such a relationship and take care of my daughter?" Soun asked.
Genma blinked. "Well... actually... I was going for 'spineless punching bag that will endure any trial for a chance to score', but I suppose your definition works too, Tendo."
Soun sweatdropped. "Your impression of your son doesn't exactly inspire much confidence within me, Saotome. How about Ranma? I really think it would be best if he were to marry one of the girls as well."
Genma nodded slowly. "Yes, I realize that. However, getting Ranma to do anything like that is a bit... complicated."
Soun raised an eyebrow. "Complicated how?"
"Oh, mostly a few legal issues here and there that need to be taken care of," Genma said uncomfortably. His explanation only further confused Soun, however. "You know, little things like finishing my will and making some other 'final arrangements', filing for some good health insurance... And then I'll have to make sure I'm surrounded by witnesses at all times for the next few weeks."
Soun sweatdropped. "Saotome?"
"Nothing permanent, just until the boy cools down. You know how it is, Tendo. Teenagers today can be very irritable when their parents try to interfere with their lives like that."
Soun stared at his friend with an eyebrow raised. This didn't sound much like him at all. Ranma had supposedly spent pretty much all his life with Genma, and been through the very strictest training regimen since they had managed to seal up Master Happousai. How could the boy be so independent, and how could Saotome stand for it?
"Now, Saotome, I don't mean to try and tell you how to raise your boys, but I really think it's time you put your foot down!" Soun suggested gruffly, his arms crossed. "Why, if you really think that Ranma will throw such a tantrum because of something so silly as being forced to marry against his will, I'll be more than happy to back you up, old friend."
Genma chuckled nervously. "Thanks Tendo, but it's not really the engagement that I think will upset him."
Soun blinked. "Then what's the problem?"
Genma sighed. "Well, in truth, I've already made some plans to help Ranma into the engagement... I just wish I had been completely sober while I was making them..."
"Saotome?"
"You'll see, Tendo, you'll see." Genma adjusted his belt and sighed heavily, dreading the task that awaited him.

"So, you claim that she hit you and you DIDN'T deserve it?" Ranma asked, raising an eyebrow. "That's a first."
"I KNOW!" Ataru yelled, stretching his neck to one side, and then the other to work out the kinks. "That really hurt, too! I got pulverized before I even got a chance to touch her!" Ataru complained.
"Pre-emptive strike," Nabiki muttered, "Akane's either getting smarter or just more paranoid."
"You only THINK there's a difference," Ranma said to her, before turning back to Ataru. "Well, maybe you can cop a feel later and then run away to compensate."
"Really?" Ataru asked hopefully. "You won't trip me on my getaway?"
Ranma frowned, but scratched his chin in thought. "Well... she did hit you awfully hard... and I can't say I like her very much..."
Nabiki raised an eyebrow as she took a sip of tea. "So, wait, you actually use logical reasoning to weigh emotional factors against your conscience when making a purely ethical decision?"
"Not entirely," Ranma responded, "there's also apathy to consider."
Ataru nodded seriously. "To say nothing of any potential personal gain that may be involved."
Nabiki blinked. "Well... I'm impressed."
"Aha! There you are!"
Everybody in the room turned toward the stairs to see Akane stalking toward them, her Glare of Death focused on Ataru at full power.
Ataru sweatdropped. "Well, I can change that quickly enough... uh... are you angry at me for some reason?"
She grit her teeth. "Gee, YOU THINK?! What do you think you're doing, sneaking into my room like that?!"
"Oh... Akane, I actually sent Ataru up there to wake you up. You were running late," Kasumi explained helpfully.
Akane's glare died, and she blinked rapidly in confusion. "You... wha?"
Ranma sighed and stood up, clapping a hand onto Akane's shoulder. "Akane-"
"Don't touch me."
"Okay!" Ranma acquiesced, jerking his hand away, "Akane, seeing how Ataru is, unfortunately, my brother and all, and as your future brother-in-law, I'm going to have to insist that you actually wait until he actually deserves it before you hit him."
Akane's eyes narrowed at him.
"I mean, you'll get plenty of opportunities; there's no reason to waste all this energy when he technically hasn't done anything wrong yet."
"Thanks a million, bro," Ataru deadpanned.
"So, who gets to judge what deserves a beating?" Akane asked Ranma, glaring at him.
Ranma blinked. "Uh... well, I suppose it'll be pretty obvious..."
"So, I can decide on my own." Akane concluded.
For some reason, Ranma had a really bad feeling about where this was heading. "Uhhh..."
*Slam!!* Ataru winced as his brother had his head smashed into the stairs, and sweatdropped heavily. "So, um... did you sleep well?" He tried, desperately searching for a topic of conversation that wouldn't lead to him getting floored.
"No," she growled out, remembering her last dream with a clarity that made her skin crawl.
"Ah," Ataru mumbled, chewing on his lower lip. "Well, we had a pretty big evening yesterday, didn't we?"
"Stop talking," Akane commanded.
As Ataru considered the possible advantages of refusing her against the certainty of being creamed, Ranma had finished spitting out splinters from forcing his head out of the stairway.
"Hey! What the hell was that for?!" Ranma growled threateningly.
Akane began eating her breakfast, pointedly not looking at Ranma. "You deserved it."
"For WHAT?!" Ranma challenged.
"I don't have an answer to that," Akane admitted between bites, still not looking at Ranma. "If I start caring, I'll let you know."
Ranma's eye twitched, and his fists clenched and unclenched. "Why you little..."
*Splash*
Ranma blinked as water rolled down her bright red hair, and she turned an exasperated stare toward her father, who was holding an upturned, empty glass over her head.
"What'd ya do that for?" Ranma muttered in a calm, bored tone.
Ataru snickered slightly as he ate his breakfast. "Ooh boy, somebody's asking for it."
Genma swallowed deeply, trying to keep all signs of nervousness and abject fear from his voice and expression. He did quite an admirable job, considering how much he dreaded having to go through with this. The plan HAD fallen together way too conveniently when he thought of it.
"Ranma, you and Ataru are starting school today."
"Pft!" Ataru spit out his tea and coughed a few times before slamming his teacup down. "School?! You've gotta be kidding me! We just got here!"
Genma nodded firmly. "You'll be going to Furinkan High along with Akane and Nabiki, boy. I've already submitted the paperwork for both of you, and there's a pack for each of you next to the door."
Ranma shrugged. "Fine. Whatever." She turned to face her father fully, and put her hands on her hips. "However, that doesn't explain why you just turned me into a girl. There are less painful ways to get my attention."
"Huh? Painful? Does changing hurt?" Akane asked curiously.
Ataru cleared his throat. "He didn't mean painful for himself," he whispered to her.
A few droplets of sweat appeared on Genma's brow, even as he reinforced his "expression of ultimate parental authority". "Ranma, you'll be attending Furinkan as a female."
*Clop* *Sploosh* Ataru's tea splashed over the dining room table as the cup slipped from his hand.
Everyone in the dining room, plus Soun, who was still outside, turned their heads to stare at Genma, confused and bewildered expressions on their faces.
Ranma frowned, then stuck her pinky in her ear and twisted it back and forth. After a few seconds of this, she frowned deeper. "That's weird. There's nothing in my ear. But I must have heard you wrong, because I just heard you tell me that I'm supposed to attend school like this. And even YOU would never say something so stupid, because I'd never go along with it, and I'd likely hurt you severely for trying to make me."
Genma swallowed deeply. "Boy, I know that it'll be hard for you, but it's for the best. Cold water is a lot more common than hot water, so-"
"-So you expect me to believe that you care, and go along with this moronic idea of yours? Mi'right?" Ranma said irritably, hands on her hips.
More sweat appeared on Genma's brow. "I just thought it'd save you a lot of trouble-"
"-By making me go as a girl?" Ranma interrupted again, lowering her head. She formed a fist with one hand, and began to massage that wrist with her other hand. "So, you made an idiotic decision that would make me go through the rest of the school year as a girl, to save me the trouble and embarrassment of having to explain my curse." She raised her head again, and glared hard at her father. "Guess which one I'd prefer?"
"Ranma, I-"
"-Not that I really care or nothin'," Ranma began, glancing toward her brother, "but does Ataru have to go through with this too?"
Ataru's head jerked up. "That is an excellent question!"
"N-No," Genma stuttered, "b-because he might t-take advantage of the si-situation."
Ataru blinked. "Hey... I hadn't considered that." He started to rub his chin. 'Legitimate, pain-free access to the girl's bathrooms... the locker rooms... the showers...' he started chuckling slightly as he grinned to himself. Then he rethought that last point. 'Well, maybe not the showers.'
Ranma shrugged. "Whatever. Like I said, I don't really care. I 'aint going through with this. Period."
Genma crossed his arms over his chest, presumably to look more authoritative, but likely to stop himself from flinching. "You don't have a choice, boy. I've already submitted the forms. As far as Furinkan is concerned, Ranma Saotome is, and always has been, a girl."
*Thock!* Genma doubled over as Ranma punched him in the gut.
"Right," Ranma deadpanned, grabbing the front of Genma's gi. "Well, we'll see about that." Then she hoisted the man's considerable bulk over her shoulder and began to walk into the guest room.
She stopped a moment to glance at her brother and the Tendos. "I'll clear this up. Be back in a bit."

*Slam* As the door to the guest room closed, the Tendo family sweatdropped heavily.
Ataru shook his head and returned to his food. "And THAT is THAT."
"Oh my," Kasumi began, raising a hand to her face, "I hope Ranma is able to work things out with his father. It does seem unfair to have to go to school as the wrong gender."
Ataru grinned. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about it."
*WHAM!!* Kasumi stumbled for the second time that day as the foundation of the house shook violently, and Ataru immediately jumped up and grabbed her around the waist.
"Kasumi! Are you all right?!" Ataru yelled, very much appreciating his current view as Kasumi leaned forward onto him. 'Man, she's pretty stacked!'
Ataru grinned happily as Kasumi flushed and began stuttering, but then frowned as the room seemed to become unreasonably warm.
'PLEASE let that be the hot passion of a young couple in the short prelude to sensual union!' Ataru prayed to himself as Kasumi righted herself and backed away. He then turned around to see that Soun and Akane were both bearing down on him, battle auras blazing; Soun's head had manifested into a huge demonic entity that stared down at him with a gaze promising pain and death, while Akane accomplished the same exact effect without the demon head by brandishing a large wooden mallet.
'Darn.'
"How DARE you touch Kasumi, you filthy little sicko?!" Akane seethed, holding the mallet handle with such a grip that it threatened to break in her hands.
"YOU WILL PAY FOR DEFILING MY LITTLE GIRL!!!" The demon-head screeched.
Kasumi sweatdropped as she stepped away from Ataru. That had been very immature of him, but still... "Father, Akane, don't you think you're overreacting?"
"Probably," Nabiki piped in between mouthfuls, "but it's still pretty hard to feel sorry for him."
Akane and Soun apparently sympathized with Nabiki's point of view, as they continued to converge on Ataru, who had frozen like a deer in the lights of an oncoming car.
Ataru quickly unfroze as his finely-honed survival instincts kicked in. He immediately adopted a panicked expression and pointed fearfully behind Akane and Soun. "LOOK!!! I'TS AN ALIEN SPACECRAFT!!!"
Akane and Soun stopped advancing, and looked down at him with "how stupid do you think we are" expressions.
"What kind of a pathetic trick are you trying to pull?" Akane said, resting her oversized hammer over her shoulder.
Ataru held his index finger up, as if addressing a point. "That wasn't actually so much a 'trick', as it was a 'pathetic bid for time'."
Akane raised an eyebrow. "Time for wha-"
*SLAM!!* *CRASH!!* *KAPOW!!*
Akane and Soun wobbled unsteadily as the house shook some more, taking them by surprise.
"W-Wait! Ranma! We can talk this out like adults!" came a panicked shout from another part of the house.
*WHAMMO!!* "I'm not an adult, I'm a teenager!" *SMASH!!*
Akane covered her head as a short rain of plaster fell from ceiling, and then grimaced as the final tremor caused the entire house to groan in protest of the abuse.
Then she remembered that she was in the middle of dishing out divine punishment, and turned her attention back toward Ataru.
Or, at least, the space that Ataru had occupied a split second ago.
"What the... how did... where'd he go?" Akane mumbled, searching around the room, and remembering to check the ceiling. Next to her, Soun's gigantic head followed her gaze, similarly confused.
"Wow, he IS good," Nabiki admitted, standing up, "I couldn't have done more than blink, and he was gone."
Akane growled. How could such a weenie have so much dexterity and skill? It just wasn't fair!
Nabiki gathered up her book bag, and walked toward the door. "Well, I'm going to school. See you guys later!"
"GOODBYE NABIKI, HAVE A GOOD DAY!" Soun's demon head roared.
"Father," Kasumi chided, "please, calm down." Soun flushed in embarrassment, and his aura promptly deflated.
"Nabiki, wait!" Akane called out, "let me come with you!"
"No can do!" Nabiki refused, wagging a finger at her, "the dysfunctional duo need somebody to lead them to school, and since you're the fiancee..." she gave a little wave, then jogged off through the front door.

"I don't think I like her," Ranma muttered as she re-entered the dining room. She had caught that "dysfunctional duo" comment. Not that she would deny that it was true, but it was still a rude thing to say.
"Oh, Ranma, did everything work out okay with your father?" Kasumi asked, a worried expression on her face.
Ranma shrugged. "Well, I wouldn't say that, but I definitely won't be going to school as a girl, so I'm happy." She lifted up the tea pot, and then frowned when she realized there was nothing left.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I'll go heat up some more water," Kasumi took the kettle and then headed to the kitchen. "Our hot water heater has acting up as of late; we try not to use it other than for baths. I'll just be a few minutes."
"It's all right, Kasumi," Akane protested, hefting her mallet in one hand and her bag in the other. "We don't have time right now. We can just stop at Dr. Tofu's on the way to school." She turned toward Ranma, "But FIRST, you help me find your brother."
Ranma stared at her, then looked at the mallet she was holding tight in her hands. "Your body language is telling me that you want to hurt somebody. Did Ataru actually do something this time?"
Akane glared at her. She contemplated putting the mallet to use then and there, but figured that if she knocked Ranma out, then Ataru would likely get away, plus she'd be late. "YES, he did something! That pig felt up Kasumi!"
Ranma raised an eyebrow. "Well, we certainly can't let him get away with that, can we?"
Turning, Ranma raised her leg in the air, and then slammed it down on the dining room table, causing the short legs to shatter instantly under the force, and bringing the table top down hard onto the floor.
The remaining Tendos all jerked back in surprise, and all sweatdropped as Ranma lifted one corner of the table up.
"Owwwwwww..."
Ranma rolled her eyes. "C'mon man, we've gotta go. I don't have time for you to play your stupid games."
"Table... heavy...... bones... crushed...... need... Tylenol..."
Ranma grabbed the back of Ataru's shirt and hefted him up. "Well, we're stopping by a doctor's office on the way to school, so maybe we can help you out." Ranma dragged Ataru to the front, then stopped by where their bags had been placed. "Are you going to take your own pack, or am I going to have to carry it for you?"
"The light... so bright... so warm..."
Ranma rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah... lazy jerk." Taking up both packs in her other hand, Ranma dragged Ataru out the front door. "Hey Akane, you coming? I don't know where this 'Furinkan' place is!"
Akane squeezed her eyes shut tight, and emitted the most miserable sigh that Soun had ever heard.
"Right... right.... coming."

As Akane left, Soun turned back to his tea in contemplation.
"Well, I must say, Ranma seems a bit... tense... but you have to admire his attitude."
Kasumi smiled and nodded. "I know, father. He seems like a very nice boy." She turned away, and began walking toward the guest room. "I should check on Mr. Saotome."
Soun nodded absently, and took a long sip of tea. "Hmmmmm..." he frowned, looking down into his tea, which had by now cooled significantly.
"Oh my!" Kasumi's voice came from the hallway, attracting Soun's attention. "Mr. Saotome, you shouldn't try to set your arm by yourself like that! Here, let me help, and then we can see about a splint for that leg."
__________________________________________________________________________________

"That really hurt, you know!" Ataru whined, rubbing the lump on his head while glaring at Ranma, who walked easily atop the fence alongside the sidewalk. He himself was walking next to Ranma on the sidewalk, while Akane followed behind him (she didn't dare let him out of her field of vision).
Akane, for her part, was stunned. "'Really hurt'? Forty seconds ago your eyes were glazed over like you were gonna die!"
"Like you'd get out of this engagement that easily," Ranma said, snickering slightly, then she turned around to face Akane while walking backwards. "Ataru may be a real sad excuse for a martial artist, but he can take a beating like you'd never believe."
Ataru continued glaring at her. "Yeah, and who's always doing the beating, anyway?"
Ranma shrugged. "Well, usually it's a throng of girls."
Ataru sweatdropped. "I meant besides them."
"Well, there's the girls' fathers, brothers, and boyfriends."
"Er... besides them too."
"Mothers?"
"Oh come on! There was only that one... uh, two-wait-four times that I've been beaten up by an old lady!"
Ranma smirked and held up a hand with all her fingers spread out. "Five times. Remember the fun house incident?"
A second sweatdrop joined the first on Ataru's brow. "That doesn't count! I didn't deserve that one!"
Ranma snorted. "Yeah, right. I suppose that fire just started itself. Just like the other eight dozen."
"You can't prove anything!" Ataru challenged, pointing a finger at his brother-turned-sister.
Akane, meanwhile, was massaging her head. "Oh please, God, no... what have I done to deserve this?"
"Maybe you killed someone in a previous life," Ranma ventured. Then she stopped and rubbed her chin. "Actually, considering your temper... have you killed anyone in this life?"
Akane whipped her head up to deliver a scathing reply to Ranma, but froze up when she found Ataru's face just centimeters from hers.
"Oh Akane, come now, we're just having one of those mandatory family arguments!" Smoothly, but none too subtly, he snaked an arm behind Akane. "You know, we're going to be family soon, so-"
*Th-whack!!*
Ranma cartwheeled her arms as Ataru smashed into the fence, and barely managed to recover her balance in time. "Geez! Would you watch where you're hittin' him? I didn't do nothing!"
"Oh, shut up!" Akane shouted, facing the busty redhead and her brother, who was trying to pry his head out of the chainlink fence. "All right you two! Before we get to Furinkan, let me get one thing perfectly clear: THE THREE OF US ARE STRANGERS, ALL RIGHT?!"
Ranma blinked. "You mean I have to pretend I don't know Ataru?"
Akane blinked, then slapped her face in exasperation. "NO. I meant you two don't know ME."
"Ah," Ranma mumbled, chewing on her lower lip in thought. "Well, I was just asking, 'cause it sounded like a pretty cool deal before."
Ataru would've replied, but was still trying to tug his head free from the fence.
Akane groaned. "Well, fine! I don't care what you two do! But as long as we're at school, I don't know you two, and you don't know me!"
Ranma rubbed her chin. "But... well... we LIVE together. I mean, I guess I can see where you're coming from, since we don't really KNOW each other, but-"
"That's not the point!" Akane shouted, "I don't want to be associated with you two! No matter what happens, pretend like you've never seen me before!"
Ranma seemed to go into deep thought, mulling this over. Ataru, meanwhile, gave a final, mighty tug, finally managing to wrench his head from its steel prison.
He immediately turned toward Akane, a genuinely hurt expression on his face. "But Akane, I'm your fiance!"
"THAT'S what I don't want anybody to know!" Akane growled. "While we're at school, you're not to speak to me, speak ABOUT me, or even get within a twenty-meter radius of me! Understood?!"
"But what if some creep tries to hit on you?" Ataru reasoned, "how can I come to your aid and provide a legitimate excuse to protect you from him if I can't even come near you?"
Akane couldn't keep from laughing. "Ha! As if you could put a stop to it! And besides, they don't get any creepier than you!"
"Hey, I take some offense to that," Ataru mumbled half-heartedly.
Akane wasn't finished though, and poked Ataru in the chest with her finger as she glared down at him. "And while we're on the subject, I don't CARE what anybody says, you and I are NOT. GETTING. MARRIED."
Ataru blinked. "So...... we get to make out, but we can still see other people?"
Akane's face turned absolutely red from a critical combination of righteous anger with a dash of embarrassment. "WE ARE NEVER-"
"Hey, how about this," Ranma interrupted, looking thoughtful, "let's say that one of your friends introduces us to you. After that, can we act like we know who you are, or do we have to pretend that we hit our head or something and forgot?"
"AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Akane screamed, before turning toward Furinkan and running with all her might, screaming the whole time like a madwoman.

Ranma blink-blinked. "What?? It was a fair question!"
Ataru smiled slightly and shook his head. "Ranma, Ranma, Ranma. Even as a woman, you still don't know a thing about them."
Ranma raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And you do?"
Ataru grinned. "Of course! The answer was obviously the amnesia one! Clearly your ignorance scared her away!"
Ranma rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Shut up and follow her."
__________________________________________________________________________________

Akane panted heavily as she came upon the entrance to Dr. Tofu's clinic, her steps becoming leaden as weariness overcame her. It wasn't really that long a run, but she had been ill prepared to take off like that, and had used up a lot of breath screaming.
"I'm... almost... there..." Akane mumbled between breaths, holding her chest.
After a moment, she stretched a little bit, and then leaned against the sign post outside Tofu's office as she regulated her breathing.
"They're probably lost now... ha! Serves 'em right," Akane muttered to herself. "If I don't have to deal with them at all, that just makes everything easier."
"Were you talking about us?" Ranma asked.
"GAH!!" Akane yelled, jumping away and falling on her rear.
Ranma and Ataru simply watched her sputter and stumble, standing calmly next to the clinic.
"H-How d-did you find your way here?" Akane asked, shaking considerably as she hugged her bag to her chest.
Ranma sweatdropped. "Uh... we followed you. I mean, no offense or anything, but you're really not all that fast."
Ataru rolled his eyes. "Says the guy who claimed he could lap that Olympic gold runner."
"Hey!" Ranma yelled, turning toward him, "I was real close and you know it! He had a head start, and you tripped me near the end!"
Ataru sweatdropped. "That was actually the opposite of my point, even if you just proved it."
Meanwhile, Akane had clasped her hands together while she was sitting on the ground, and was even now begging for mercy.
"Oh PLEASE, if there's a merciful God, let this just be a bad dream or something..."
Ranma frowned. "Do you have time to be praying like that? If we don't get my hot water and get going, we're going to be late for school. You should have prayed before we left."
Akane chose to respond by covering her ears with her hands and chanting "Shut up" over and over again, like a mantra.
"Well hello, what have we here?"
Ranma, Ataru, and Akane all turned toward the voice, the last of the three with shining, hopeful eyes.
A man with short brown hair made into a small ponytail and wearing a pair of wire-frame glasses approached the small group, holding a skeleton model with one hand.
"Hello Akane. Who are your friends?" Dr. Tofu asked, smiling pleasantly at the young man and the redhead as he waited to be introduced.
Quite to his surprise, Akane leapt at him and grabbed onto his waist, smothering her face in his chest. "Oh Doctor Tofu! Please help me! Get me away from these lunatics!"
Tofu blinked rapidly, unsure of what to make of Akane's reaction. "Akane, wait! What's wro-"
Before he could finish, Ataru had clasped his hand that wasn't occupied with the skeleton between his own. "Can you help her, Doc? The girl's gone mad, I tell you! Mad! You must help her!"
Akane immediately let go of Tofu and smacked Ataru upside the head. *Thwap!* "If you don't shut up, YOU'LL be the one who needs medical attention!"
Ataru winced. "Never mind... I think she's back to normal now."

As Dr. Tofu stared at the spectacle before him, he felt a slight tugging on his shirt, and turned away.
Ranma bowed politely to the man as soon as she had his attention. Then she jabbed a thumb at Akane and Ataru, the former of which was choking the latter. "Don't listen to them. We're actually here to get some hot water for me."
Tofu blinked. "Oh. Hot water? Not a problem, young lady."
The doctor turned away to retrieve the water, but stopped when he felt Ranma tugging at his shirt again, and turned back around. "Something wrong?"
Ranma coughed lightly into her hand. "Please call me Ranma, not young lady."
Tofu hardly thought that an unreasonable request, and nodded. "All right."
Ranma continued. "That was your free complimentary warning. I'm afraid the next one will cost you an arm and a leg. Literally." She hadn't said it with any malice or anger, but somehow Tofu got the feeling she was being serious.
He blinked, unsure of how to respond to that.
As it so happened, he didn't have to, since Akane unexpectedly grabbed his arm and yanked him behind her into his clinic.
"Come on Doctor Tofu! We have to get Ranma's hot water! There's no time to lose!" She continued dragging Tofu into his office until the door slammed shut behind her, babbling desperately the whole time.

Outside the clinic, Ranma scratched her head, then smirked and turned toward her brother.
"I think she likes him."
"What?!"
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Akane, are you feeling okay?" Tofu asked slowly, watching as the youngest Tendo daughter leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. Usually Akane was almost disturbingly nice and proper around him, but today she seemed exceedingly stressed. "Whatever it is Akane, you can always talk to me."
Akane looked longingly at the good doctor, gazing deeply into his concerned, caring eyes. "It's... it's those two out front! They..." Akane struggled to calm herself as all of her recent frustrations tried to pour out at once.
Tofu saw her searching for a way to describe it, and gently laid a hand on her shoulder. "It's all right, Akane. Take your time. I'm here to help."
Akane sighed and smiled up at Doctor Tofu, eternally glad that there was at least ONE decent male in Nerima. "Well... you see, those two out front... they're our houseguests. My dad knew their dad from when they were training a long time ago, and it turns out that they actually agreed to have us marry to unite the schools," Akane's tone grew intensely disgusted around "marry". "One is a psychotic idiot, and the other one is an unforgivable pervert."
Tofu nodded silently, matching the descriptions to the two siblings. He assumed that Ranma was the "psychotic idiot", given how she had threatened him like that, which made the other one the "pervert", though he hadn't been doing anything lecherous at the time.
"It just isn't fair!" Akane groused, "before last night, I was perfectly happy! Now my own family is trying to get me married to that sick creep!"
Tofu nodded sympathetic and squeezed Akane's shoulder. "Well, it does seem awfully early for you to get married. You're still children, after all." He removed his hand and then stared seriously at Akane. "Akane, if this gets out of hand, then I want you to know that you can always come talk to me, and if things really start to get bad, you can even stay here for a little while until things blow over or we get a chance to work things out." Akane looked like she was ready to jump at his invitation right then and there, so Tofu raised a palm to forestall her response. "But first, I want you to try and find a creative way to deal with this, okay? I care about you, but I don't want to become so deeply involved if it can be avoided, and you really need to learn to deal with these kinds of problems on your own."
Akane lowered her head and sighed. "Okay... I guess you're right..."
Dr. Tofu smiled at her. "There now, I'm sure it'll be okay. Besides, from what I hear, you can take care of yourself if he gets a little pushy. Now how about that hot water?"
__________________________________________________________________________________

Akane couldn't help moping as she opened the front door of Tofu's clinic, pondering over what Dr. Tofu had said.
'Deal with it on my own? Why should I? I didn't get myself into this mess, it's all Dad's fault! Why should I have to suffer for his stupid mistakes?!'
Her hand clenched tighter around the handle of the kettle she was carrying as her rage increased.
'Even Dr. Tofu simply cast me aside and told me that I was on my own! How could he?! I thought he was different!!'
Stepping outside, Akane grabbed the hot kettle up between her two hands, and snarled fiercely as she prepared to crush the metal container out of sheer misguided fury.
"Ataru, where the hell did you get that gasoline?!"
Akane blinked, and the beginning of what would have surely been a great tirade of pointless destruction fizzled out.
"I found it in the little shed over there. Now stand back."
"NO!! Give me that match, you idiot! No, Ataru! I am NOT going to let you set fire to a doctor's office!"
Akane turned to stare incredulously at the two siblings. Ranma was currently planting her foot in Ataru's face, while simultaneously holding a single match far out of the young lecher's reach.
"Oh, like you would handle this any differently if it were YOUR fiancee!" Ataru challenged, pulling away from Ranma.
"I WOULD handle it differently, you nimrod!" Ranma growled. "No fire, and that's final!"
Akane's left eye twitched, and she immediately contemplated re-entering the clinic and begging Dr. Tofu for sanctuary. If he still didn't want to right away, she could always offer him something in return. Like some free help around the office, or her life's savings, or her body, or-
It was about this time that a desperate message of pain finally broke the barrier into Akane's brain, informing her that she had been holding onto Ranma's steaming hot kettle for far longer than was strictly healthy.
"YAAAAAH!!" She shouted, throwing the container in the air.
Ranma and Ataru immediately turned at Akane's shout, and quickly assessed what was wrong.
Ranma took the initiative, and made a run for Akane's position.
"Hey! Would you be careful?!" She shouted, stopping in front of the youngest Tendo girl.
*Klank* With careful ease, Ranma plucked the kettle out of the air on its way down, saving its precious contents.
"Geez! You almost spilled it all! What's wrong with you?" Ranma snapped, pouring some of it over her head.
The change quickly swept over him, and he frowned slightly as the water rolled down his head. "Kinda hot, isn't it?"
"GEE, YOU THINK?!" Akane shouted, holding out her hands and waving them in the air in a laughable attempt to cool them.
She had just started blowing on her palms, when Ataru deliberately stepped up right in front of her, looking down with his arms crossed over his chest.
"And just what you doing in there?" He said, glaring at her.
Akane glared back. "Getting Ranma some hot water!"
"For five minutes?" Ataru challenged, "I guess hot water isn't all you got!"
A vein popped out on Akane's head, and she started shaking as she grit her teeth.
Ranma sighed and walked past both of them, grabbing Ataru's arm as he passed. "Let it go, Ataru. She's really not worth it, anyway."
"I see how it is!" Ataru continued yelling back at his fiancee, even as Ranma dragged him forward. "Well, fine! Two can play at that game! I was planning to cheat on you anyway, but now it's justified! Take THAT!"
Akane groaned and grabbed her head with her hands, trying to sort out her anger, urge to flee, and need to get to school.
'Creative solutions... creative solutions... creative solutions......... hmmm... maybe if I had a T-bone steak, a piece of string, and a mountain lion...'
__________________________________________________________________________________

"So this is Furinkan, huh? I'm not impressed." Ataru frowned deeply as he looked over the school, as if he was any judge of what a good campus might look like.
Ranma shrugged, walking up next to him. "Yeah, well, we're here, and we're going to be here for a while, depending on how long it takes the Tendos to get sick of you and kick us all out of their house."
Akane, who had been following listlessly behind them with her head down, immediately perked up hopefully. "You really think Dad would do that?"
Ranma blinked, turning toward her. "I thought it was a given. Why?"
Akane lowered her head again miserably. "Forget it. You don't know Dad. He's too stubborn to give up on something that he really has his heart on." 'It figures that one of the few times Dad decides to pretend he has a spine and stick to something, I end up having to suffer for it.'
"Hey, is there some sort of sports event going on? Look, all those guys are gathered around in padding and stuff." Ataru put a hand over his forehead as he scanned the field, looking at the throng of jocks. "It almost looks like they're waiting for-" *Zoom!* Before he could finish that thought, Akane rushed past him with such speed that Ataru was almost bowled over just from the wind in her passing.
"What in the-" Ranma muttered.

"Akane, I love-" *BAM!!*
"Date me Ak-" *SLAM!!*
"Er, maybe I'll just leave n-" *KAPOW!!*
"I give up! Please don't hu-" *THWACK!!*
"Help! Help! Somebody hel-" *POW!!* *CRACK!!*
Near the rear of the crowd, a hockey player sweatdropped as he watched the oncoming hurricane of violence, while next to him a soccer player tugged on his sweater collar nervously.
"Well, she certainly seems to be getting into it today," the soccer player remarked.
The hockey player sighed. "Aw, geez... I hate fighting her when she has PMS. I swear, it gets worse every month."
His companion nodded. "Yeah. Almost makes you wonder if it's really worth all the trouble, coming out here every day and being beaten to a pulp, even though none of us will likely ever beat her, much less date her."
The hockey player blinked, then put a hand to his mask in thought. "Is it worth it?"
The two boys turned to look at each other, realization finally dawning.
*CRASH!!* *WHAM!!*
Akane breathed heavily as her last two opponents fell, her hands clenching and unclenching. "What?! That's it?! Get back up, you weaklings!! I'm not done yet!! Do you hear me?!"
Mass groaning was her only response.

Ranma sweatdropped. "Well, you have to give her credit for efficiency."
Ataru whistled. "48 seconds. Good time."
Ranma snorted in response. "Feh. I could do better."
"Hey Saotome!" Yelled a voice from above.
Ranma and Ataru both looked up to see Nabiki leaning out of a window on the second story.
"Don't worry about Akane, she goes through this every day!" Nabiki assured them. 'Though she certainly burned through them quickly today.'
Ranma shrugged. "Well, I guess it doesn't involve us, and it's not like she's in trouble, or anything. Let's go."
Ataru wordlessly followed his brother, but turned to look at Akane as she caught a rose out of the air.
'A rose? Where'd that come from?'

"What fools these mortals be," Kuno began, his bokken held before him at the ready.
Akane was already moving to vent the rest of her frustration on her long-time antagonist, when suddenly an idea popped into her head. After all, no matter how much of a dolt Kuno was, so long as she didn't have marry or live with him, he was certainly better than Ataru, right? So why not use one infatuated idiot to get rid of the other?
"Oh Kuno! You've got to help me!" Akane said pleadingly, collapsing onto her knees.

Ataru stopped following Ranma as Akane suddenly fell to her knees in front of the older guy in the blue kendo outfit. He was just a bit taller than Ranma, with brown hair similar in shade to his own, and had an intolerable pretty-boy look about him, even if he didn't seem to be playing the role very well.
"Hey! What's she doing?"
Ranma halted and looked back. "Hm?"

Kuno blinked, and there was a slight popping noise as his brain blew several fuses. Akane was asking him for help? Fortunately, he had never used his brain much anyway. "Help? My love, your will is mine! Any task that you require completed awaits only your command, and I will-"
"Yeah yeah yeah," Akane interrupted, worried that if she took too long, school would start without her. "Look, this pervert over there's been bothering me a lot, okay? I need you to smite him or whatever." She pointed helpfully across the schoolyard at Ataru, who blinked and pointed to himself in confusion.
"A pervert, you say?!" Kuno shouted, raising his bokken into the air. "Foul womanizer! A true man seeks the company of fair maidens through honorable means, such as striking down his love upon the field of battle! I shall smite thee, and vanquish thy lustful spirit!"
Ranma turned toward Ataru. "I think he's talking about you, dude."
"Wonderful. I must have gained a reputation when I wasn't looking," Ataru muttered miserably.
Kuno leveled his weapon at Ataru. "Speak, fool, and tell me the name of one who would dare harass my dearest love, the most beautiful flower, the fierce tigress Akane Tendo!"
Ranma raised an eyebrow and clasped his hands together over his head, stepping up beside Ataru. "Well well well. It looks like the tomboy's got a boyfriend."
Ataru blinked. "B-B-Boyfriend?! He's her boyfriend?! That's no fair! Nobody told me she was taken!"
Akane winced hard as Ataru shouted out in surprise, and then hid her face in her hands. At least a quarter of the school must have heard him, and the way that she was clearly siccing Kuno on Ataru, incorrect conclusions could easily be drawn.
Kuno smirked at Ataru. "'Boyfriend' is such a pitiful, crude word to describe the unbreakable bonds of love between me and the beauteous Akane! Truly, we are more akin to lovers, or even those joined by the eternal string of holy matrimony! 'Tis more a thing of fate and-"
"KUNO!!!" Akane shouted at the top of her lungs, startling the kendoist out of his rant. "Stop talking and beat him up!" Her face was completely red, and she was unconsciously ripping her bag apart in her hands.
Kuno blinked, and then slowly nodded. "It is as my love commands. Stranger, know that you face the invincible Tatewaki Kuno, the undefeated rising star of the kendo world! Surrender now, or I, the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, will strike you down where you stand!" He raised his bokken into the air, and a single bolt of lightning streaked through the sky in the background.
Ataru scratched his head, then shrugged. "Okay. I surrender."
*Thud!* Akane hit the ground face-first.
Kuno grinned and turned away, his wooden sword resting on his shoulder. "Surely what you lack in courage and charm, you make up for in sense."
Ranma rolled his eyes. "If only..."
"Very well knave, since you show such intelligence as to properly recognize your betters, I shall-"
"Hey!" Akane ran up in front of Kuno, and grabbed him by the shirt before yanking his head down to face her. "What the heck do you think you're doing?! He's not allowed to surrender! You have to hurt him!"
Kuno blinked rapidly. "But, my love, twould not be honorable to-"
"Shut up! You're too stupid to know what's honorable!" Akane spat, before pulling Kuno around and shoving him toward the two Saotome brothers. "That pervert tried to touch me! Now go punish him!"
Ranma stared expressionlessly as Kuno situated himself. "You know, Akane, maybe it's just me, but I'm starting to get the feeling that you're using your boyfriend in a spiteful, petty attempt to hurt my brother."
Akane glared at him. "He's NOT my boyfriend! Shut up or you're next!"
Kuno sighed deeply. "Though it pains me deeply, for my love I would forsake even my honor. Lecher, today you will feel the wrath of the Blue Thunder! KYAH!!"
"Gwa!" Ataru shouted incoherently in panic as Kuno lunged for him, bokken poised for a powerful downward slash.
*Pap* Kuno's view of Ataru blurred, and his bokken stopped in mid-swing as a hand shot up and grabbed the weapon's edge.
The kendoist blinked in surprise. The boy with the pigtail stood before him, holding his weapon calmly. The other was nowhere to be seen.

Behind Kuno, Ataru wiped the sweat off his brow. "Whew! That was close!"
"Augh!" Akane yelled, not having noticed when he ran up next to her. "How... when... what are you doing here?!" She demanded.
"Avoiding getting creamed, mostly," Ataru offered dryly. Then he glared at her. "Hey, if you already have a boyfriend, why didn't you say so? I could've chosen one of your sisters!"
Akane grit her teeth, seething. "Kuno is NOT my boyfriend!" She let out a yelp immediately following that statement, as Ataru had enveloped her in a big hug.
"Oh Akane! I knew it was a lie! You'd never give yourself to another man, would you?"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

Ranma glared hard at Kuno, who was still gaping at him as if waiting for a mirage to fade away.
"All right Kuno. The name's Ranma Saotome. The guy you just tried to deck was Ataru Saotome. That does it for introductions."
*Thwack!* Ranma snapped his leg up, and Kuno staggered back as Ranma pegged him in the chin while letting the boy's weapon go.
"You dare?!" Kuno growled.
Ranma's expression didn't change. "Look, you're right on the money about Ataru, but he didn't do nothing yet. So if you want to get to him, you gotta get through me." Suddenly, Ranma smirked. "And even if some miracle allowed that to happen, you'd still have to catch 'im, and to be honest, you're not quite up to the task."
Kuno fumed. "Your mockery is your downfall, cretin! Have at thee!" Kuno wrenched his bokken to the side, and then lunged forward, aiming to cut straight into Ranma at the chest.
*Crack!* Ranma met Kuno's bokken with his fist at precisely the right angle to snap the wooden stick like a dry twig, and let Kuno finish his follow-through with nothing but the splintered handle of his weapon.
When the kendoist stopped to gape at his shattered sword, Ranma grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled down, similar to how Akane did before.
*Thock!* Ranma brought his knee up to slam into Kuno's face, then let go and spin-kicked the older boy in the head. Kuno did a full 180 as he wobbled to the side, and then fell dumbly to the grass below.
"Feh. Nothin' to it." He then turned to look across the field, and frowned as he watched Akane beat Ataru into the ground with her bag. "Hey, are you guys comin'? We're gonna be late!"

Up on the second floor, Nabiki idly rubbed her chin as she thought over what she had just seen below.
"Did that guy just take out Kuno?"
"Man, that kid is good!"
Nabiki frowned. She had to give her little sister credit; manipulating Kuno into attacking the Saotomes was a good deal smarter and more graceful than the manner in which she handled most of her problems (which she somehow thought would all go away if she hit them enough). In fact, she herself had been planning to offer to get rid of the engagement for Akane (for a fair sum, of course), and then use Kuno to beat away Ataru, and likely Ranma too.
Of course, that was no longer feasible for Nabiki or Akane. Ranma had just laid the smackdown on Kuno like she had never seen before, and almost looked bored for all the effort he put into it. Not only that, but he had done so to defend his brother from being beaten on for no good reason.
'Getting rid of these two may take a little more thought...'

"Come on Akane, it was just a hug. You don't have to act like he groped you," Ranma reasoned, leading the engaged couple to the front entrance to the school.
"He DID grope me!" Akane shouted angrily. By now her school uniform was looking rather rumpled and worn, and her hair was in total disarray.
Ranma blinked. "Oh. Well, you DID get that dork with the sword to attack him." He then glared at her. "By the way; don't do that. If you've got a problem with Ataru, deal with it yourself. Don't try and get your boyfriends to do it for you."
As Akane glared heatedly at Ranma, Ataru reached an arm over Akane's shoulders. "'Aint he the greatest?"
*Crack!* *Pow!*
"There," Ranma remarked, watching as Ataru fell twitching to the ground, "was that so hard?"
Akane snorted and stalked past Ranma toward the school.
"Wait!"
Akane stopped in her tracks, and lowered her head. "What do you want?!" Akane hissed, "we're not supposed to know each other, remember?"
"Actually, that's what I wanted to ask you about," Ataru clarified, getting up off the ground. "So, just to make sure it's all clear, I don't know you, and I don't Ranma, right?"
*Thud!* Akane facefaulted.
Ranma shook his head. "No, you know me! I'm your brother!"
Ataru raised an eyebrow. "Well, yeah, and I'm her fiance, but I don't know her, right?"
Lying on the stairs to the entrance, Akane's body twitched.
Ranma scratched his head. "Oh, right... I actually think that you know me, but I don't know you."
Ataru blinked. "We can do that?"
Two rather plain-looking girls stepped up to the school entrance, their eyes centered on the two unfamiliar boys standing before the steps.
One of them noticed the groaning form of a girl on the steps, and recognized her. "Hey Akane, who are these guys?"
"She doesn't know," Ataru quickly answered, turning towards them, "and since she doesn't know me, and I don't know her, and we're certainly not engaged or anything, would you like to go out with me this Friday?"
Akane twitched again.
*Conk* Ranma lightly bopped Ataru over the head. "Slow down there. I know that we don't know her, but she might know us."
Ataru shot him a look. "That hardly makes sense."
Ranma shrugged. "And the rest of this does?" He turned to Akane. "Akane, can you help us out here?"
Akane just groaned.
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Class, today we have two new students joining us. Everyone say hello to Ataru Saotome."
Ataru bowed shallowly to the class, and quickly began ordering the girls in the room from most attractive to least so.
The teacher frowned and looked down at his papers. "Saotome, it says here that you're supposed to be transferring along with your sister, Ranma Saotome. Where is she?"
Ataru blinked. "Uh, sister? Oh! Ranma! Right... er, well, she... um, I mean, he... uh..." the entire class stared oddly at Ataru as he stumbled over the pronouns. "My... sibling... had some business to take care of at the administration's office. Ranma will be along in a moment."
The teacher blinked, then shrugged. "Well, all right. Please take any empty seat you like."

Slumped over her desk, Akane tried her best to shut herself off from the rest of the classroom by covering her head with her arms.
At the moment, the only thing she had to be thankful for was that she had gained so much time by sprinting all the way to Dr. Tofu's. Otherwise, she would have surely been late to class, which would have attracted even more unwanted attention.
"Pst! Hey Akane! Who was that stud you were with out front that took out Kuno?"
Akane sighed, not uncovering her head. "Please Yuka, not now..."
"Well, how about that other gorgeous hunk of man-meat that you had the divine luck to get to touch out there?"
Akane's head immediately shot up, and she glared at Ataru, who sat opposite Yuka, on the left side of her desk.
Ataru grinned at her. "Hey beautiful! What's your name?"
Akane grit her teeth. "WHY are you sitting right next to each other? I said to act like we're strangers!"
Ataru blinked. "That's exactly what I'm doing. Whenever I transfer, I find the cutest girl in the class, get a seat next to her, and then bother her until I get a date with her."
Akane slumped forward onto her desk again. "Has that ever worked?" She mumbled.
"Occasionally. Sometimes they'll want a date with Ranma, and offer to go out with me to get me to hook them up." Ataru shrugged. It didn't really bother him that they only put up with him to get to his brother. After all, it was more action than he would've gotten as an only child.
Akane frowned. "Speaking of Ranma, is he really trying to get the vice principal to change his records?"
Ataru nodded. "That's what he said."
"I was just wondering what was taking him so long. It shouldn't take very long to fix such an obvious mistake in the transfer."
Ataru shrugged. "Well, with Ranma, things can get pretty complicated."
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Look, I don't see what's so hard about this," Ranma said calmly, trying his very best to keep his cool, "the forms say I'm a girl. I stand before you, with a picture I.D., as a boy. The forms are clearly wrong. So you can just change what the forms say, and I'll be on my way."
The Vice Principal sighed as he looked at the Daikotu Martial Arts Club membership card. "Well, I don't doubt that you're Ranma Saotome, though this thing would hardly stand up as a credible form of I.D." he slid the card across the desk over to Ranma, "now, normally, things would happen exactly as you just described, no problem."
Ranma's eye twitched. "Normally?"
The man shrugged. "I'm sorry, but I received specific instructions from Genma Saotome that if you were to show up as a boy and demand that the records be changed, that I was to refuse, and splash you with this glass of water here." He quickly took up a glass of water sitting on his desk, and then tossed its contents at Ranma.
Ranma calmly grabbed a picture off of the vice principal's desk and held it up, deftly blocking the spray of liquid.
The vice principal blinked. "Hey! That's my picture of my family!"
"What are you whining about?" Ranma muttered, "it's in a frame." Then he tossed the glass-framed photo over his shoulder.
*Crash!*
Ranma then leaned over to rest his arms on the VP's desk. "Just make the changes, and this will be nice and painless, for both of us."
The man's face contorted slightly, and then he stood up and pointed to the door of his office. "Get out. Now."
Ranma's eyes narrowed. "Change the forms. Now."
"Or what?"
"Or I'll just changed them myself!" Ranma shouted angrily.
"Ha!" The VP laughed, "you think I'm just going to stand by and let you go through my files? You'll have to get through me, first!"
__________________________________________________________________________________

"In English, a contraction is a vital part of fluent speech. Though using a complete phrase, such as 'He would not do that', or, 'I did not do that', the speaker can-"
The teacher stopped his lecture as the door to the classroom opened, admitting a young man with a pigtail, wearing what looked like a red silk shirt and black pants of the same material. "Can I help you sir?"
Ranma nodded, and walked up to the man's desk, giving the class a short wave. "Yeah. I'm Ranma Saotome. I'm supposed to be in your class."
The teacher blinked, then looked down at Ranma's chest. Then he looked up, frowning. Unless the boy in front of him was a girl deliberately trying to fool others, he was definitely male. "Uh... the documents said that-"
"I know," Ranma said, shrugging, "I'm supposed to be a girl. That's why I was late, actually. Had to clear that up with the vice principal."
"Oh. Well, then that's no problem." The teacher quickly made some marks on his attendance sheet and the papers he had been given. "Well, I was in the middle of a lecture, Mr. Saotome, so why don't you take a seat over there, next to your brother."
Ranma nodded and walked to his seat, ignoring the stares and whispers from around the class.

"Aw man, I thought we'd get another girl in this class..."
"Wow, what a hunk!"
"I can't believe he's actually related to that dork next to Akane..."
"Hey, that's the guy who knocked out Kuno this morning!"
"No way! In our class?"
"He's so cool!"

Ranma reached his desk, and slipped his bag underneath before sitting down. Then he turned toward Ataru.
"Still awake. Impressive. You planning on actually working this year?"
Ataru ignored the jibe. "Hey, what took so long up there?"
Ranma snorted. "Pops made it difficult for me to get things fixed. But I took care of it."
__________________________________________________________________________________

The bruised, aching hockey player from the battle earlier that morning squinted through his goalie mask as he looked up. "Well I'll be. That IS the vice principal up there."
The soccer player, who was limping along while using his companion for support, nodded. "I told you. And he IS wearing Astro Boy underwear! The rumor was right! Hiroshi owes me 500 yen!"
The subject of their attention was, much to his mortification, currently suspended at the top of the school flagpole, tied to the shaft and gagged with torn strips of what used to be his own clothes.
"Wonder how that happened," the hockey player mumbled, rubbing a sore area on his thigh. Akane had been more brutal than ever, but luckily, a lot less thorough. He and his companion had regained consciousness less than half an hour after they had been brought down, and hoped to be the first ones to the nurse's office before the daily rush.
"What I wonder," the soccer player began, pointing to the base of the flagpole, "is what this big, thick cable is."
Indeed, there was a thick, black cable running along the ground from the school. The end opposite the wall it looked to be ripped out of was placed at the base of the flagpole, where the rubber covering had been stripped away, and the copper wires were wrapped around the large pole.
*BRZAAAAAAAAACK!*
Both athletes jumped back in surprise as blue-white electric arcs suddenly lashed about all around the pole, concentrated mostly on the hapless fool tied to it.
"MMMMMMMPH!" The vice principal shouted around the gag as his body convulsed painfully, only to stop suddenly as the current was cut off.
The two students on the ground blinked.
*BRZAAAACK!* "MMMMMMMPH!"
*BRZAAAACK!* "MMMMMMMPH!"
*BRZAAAACK!* "MMMMMMMPH!"
They slowly turned to look at each other as several much shorter jolts blasted through the flagpole.
Finally the hockey player shrugged. "Well, as much as I'd love to stand here and watch this, my arm 'aint gonna set itself."
"Yeah, come on." The soccer player agreed.
The two made their way into the school as quickly as they could, entering the main hallway connected to the nurse's office.
"Hey, it's all dark in here," the soccer player commented. Though a few windows gave the enclosed hallway enough light to move around in without fear of walking into something, usually the lights were on all day.
*Click* *Click* *Click* *Click*
The two athletes turned down the hall to watch as a girl tried operating the lightswitch while another girl stood by, frowning.

*Click* *Click* "It just doesn't make sense! How could all the bulbs in the hall go bad at the same time?" The first girl planted her fists on her hips as she stepped away from the light switch.
Her friend shrugged. "Got me." She then reached for the switch. *Click* *Click* *Click* Having no better luck, she turned to her friend. "There must be something wrong with the wiring or something. Maybe I should just leave it on? They might just start working again later."
The other girl considered it. "No, just turn it off. They'll get it fixed eventually."
*Click*

As the girls left, the two athletes turned to look at each other once again.
"We probably shouldn't look too far into this."
"Right. We're just bystanders."
They shared a nervous chuckle as they staggered towards the nurse's office.
*Knock* *Knock*
The door opened, revealing a gorgeous, shapely woman with long, black hair. She sighed at the sight of the two boys, who were trying their best not to leer. "Hockey goalie and soccer captain, hm? All right, you get your pick of cots." She frowned. "I'm telling you, you idiots had better stop killing yourselves trying to beat that poor Tendo girl. I honestly don't see what you morons think you'll get out of it all."
"Sorry Miss Sakura," they both recited habitually, while thinking, 'Getting beaten up by Akane, only to get sent to be cared for by Sakura! All that, and we get to skip English class! Life doesn't get any better than this!'
The two boys wobbled into the office, leaving Sakura at the door, shaking her head sadly. She knew very well that they had no intention of stopping.
She was about to enter her office after them, but looked in the hallway and frowned. "That's odd... what happened to the lights?"
She stepped over to the lightswitch across the hallway. *Click* *Click* *Click* *Click*
"Did all the bulbs burn out at once? No, couldn't be..." *Click* *Click* *Click* *Click*
__________________________________________________________________________________

At the Tendo household, an uneasy calm had settled over the small home as its three current occupants wasted away the day.
It was calm due to the fact that over half the residents were currently absent. While Kasumi cleaned and Soun and Genma played board games, there was little around to cause any significant disturbance, what with all the teenagers at school.
It was uneasy due to the fact that Genma was playing Shogi with his arm in a sling, bandages around his face, and ice packs on his head, ankles, and knees (luckily for him, it had turned out that, while his legs were badly hurt, neither one was broken). Really, the uneasiness was limited to Soun, so the calm wasn't so heavily afflicted at all. Genma, for all the pain he had been in, seemed to be weathering it rather well.
"Saotome, are you absolutely sure that you don't need to see a physician? I know one that works nearby, he's even something of a family friend. He's an excellent chiropractor as well..."
Genma smirked and waved his good hand slowly. "For the tenth time, Tendo, I'll be just fine. The boy really didn't put his heart into it this morning, I can assure you."
Soun frowned into his tea. "Saotome, I must ask, why did you want Ranma to go as a girl?"
Genma snorted. "Well, I was pretty hammered, so I thought it would help keep him in line, maybe teach his some discipline." He tugged on his sling a little bit. "You can see how well that worked out. Other than that, I was hoping it would keep him from getting a girlfriend before we could pair him with Kasumi or Nabiki."
Soun blinked. "Getting a girlfriend? Is that a serious threat, here?"
Genma nodded gravely. "I tell you, Tendo, the boy's a chip off the old block. He must have at least half my charm, and all of my good looks. It's a curse as much as a blessing, I tell you."
Soun sweatdropped. "Indeed, Saotome." He didn't have the heart to tell his old friend that the bandages obscuring half of his face were a great improvement.
"Not only that, but the boy's very protective of his friends, female, or otherwise," Genma said, frowning, "I'm afraid that once the ladies get a hold of him, it's beyond my power to make him stop seeing them." Genma shrugged. Ataru was actually far more effective in such situations than he was. Many women were unwilling to put up with Ataru, even to be around Ranma. It was a remarkably convenient solution to getting Ranma to split up with any unusually persistent girl that managed to get close to him, and in the end, the only one who was really hurt was Ranma.
Soun sighed. "Actually Saotome, that brings me to another important point. Do you always let Ranma treat you like this?"
Genma raised an eyebrow. "I don't 'let' the boy do anything, Tendo. He does what he wishes, and unfortunately, it's reached the point where it's beyond my power to stop him."
"Surely though, you must have taught the boy something about discipline. I mean, his behavior is inexcusable!"
Genma nodded sagely. "Ah, quite right, Tendo. That is my greatest failure in the boy, and yet, also my greatest achievement."
Soun blinked in confusion.
Genma elaborated. "Ranma and Ataru are free spirits, if nothing else, but while I've managed to make Ataru utterly spineless and submissive, he has become weak and cowardly. Ranma, on the other hand, I've managed to mold into a man among men; the boy is strong, fearless, and yields to no man's will but his own." He sighed. "Unfortunately, that includes mine. I tried to teach both my sons to obey me at all times, and I've always been able to bully Ataru into obeying me, so long as it doesn't involve him fighting, but Ranma always took it upon himself to be as different from Ataru as possible. He long ago started to defy me, and when I beat him into place, he doubled and redoubled his training for the sole purpose of being able to beat me when I told him what to do. It worked wonders for his regimen, but, well... you know..." Genma tugged some more on his sling, "it's been hell trying to travel with the boy when he won't listen to me, but Ataru's as lazy and dull-headed as they come, even if he'll do whatever I say."
Soun crossed his arms over his chest and stared at his old friend, deep in thought. "I see. One is your pride, the ultimate culmination of years of hard work and training, that has surpassed your designs and transcended your ideals. The other is your pleasure, a helpless moron that you can manipulate at will for personal gain, but with no ambition, skill, or drive."
"Unless you count his sex drive," Genma mumbled.
Soun looked down at the Shogi board, though the game had lost its interest in the wake of their discussion. "Well, surely you must have instilled a sense of honor in the boy. Perhaps that could be used as leverage against him?"
Genma shook his damaged head sadly. "I'm afraid not, Tendo. I taught Ranma specifically so that I could use him that way, but with all his roaming around looking for martial arts masters to help him advance himself, he eventually developed his own twisted sense of honor. Most of it involves not listening to me," he grumbled, "oh, where did I go wrong?"
"Oh, I don't know Mr. Saotome," Kasumi said, stepping in to serve the two men some lemonade, "Ranma may be very rough, but I think he turned out to be a wonderful young man, despite your efforts."
Genma smiled and took his glass. "Why thank you, Kasumi!" Then he paused, blinking, "I think..."
Soun grinned as he took his own lemonade. "Now Saotome, we both know that thinking is hardly your strong suit! Ha ha ha!"
"Ha ha ha! Don't you know it, Tendo!" Genma agreed, laughing himself.
Then, far too suddenly, both men stopped laughing and looked down at the playing board.
"Well, maybe going to school can keep them out of trouble," Soun thought aloud, waiting for Genma to make his move.
Genma snorted. "Yeah, right." Then he stared hard at the playing board. "Tendo, are you sure the board was like this before?"
Soun blinked innocently. "Before what, Saotome old buddy?"
"Uh... never mind."
__________________________________________________________________________________

Ataru grinned and chuckled darkly as he looked at the pail of water lying in the hallway, completely unguarded.
Very slowly, he picked it up by its handle, gently lifting it to stomach level while staring at his reflection on the top.
'Girls' locker room, prepare yourself... for Akari!' he arranged his grip so that he held the pail by its sides, and slowly lifted it up. 'Panties, bras, legs and breasts! All mine! MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE!!!'
"Ataru Saotome?"
"Gyah!" *Clank!* *Splash!* Ataru wobbled unsteadily as the bucket slipped from his hands and fell to the floor, splashing its contents harmlessly on the floor, and getting not a drop on the lecherous teenager.
"Urgh..." Ataru groaned, then turned listlessly to see who had startled him.
"Oh, I'm so sorry! Are you okay?" A pretty girl with shoulder-length black hair stared at him worriedly, hugging her book bag to her chest.
Ataru's brain quickly changed gears, and he stood up straight and slipped his hands in his pockets in a pathetic attempt to look manfully casual. "Yeah, I'm Ataru, what's your name, beautiful?" He smiled in his usually lecherous way.
The girl seemed to think to herself for a moment. "You don't remember me?"
"We have second and third period together," Ataru immediately stated, as if reciting from a book, "in second period, you sit in the fourth row, second column, starting from the outer wall. In third, you sit in the back row, third column, behind the flat-chested blond chick with big ears."
She blinked rapidly, amazed and likely a little weirded out by the way he had been able to set all that out so quickly. Then she cocked her head to one side slightly. "You don't remember who I am though?" she asked, a little disappointed, "oh well. I guess it's not fair to expect you to. I didn't recognize you until the teacher told the class your name."
Ataru blinked. "We knew each other before today?"
Shinobu nodded, then stared oddly as Ataru put his index fingers on either side of his head, and squeezed his eyes shut tight.
After a few seconds, his eyes snapped open again, and he spread his arms wide, smiling happily. "Shinobu Miyake! I used to play at your house when I was ten while skipping out on martial arts practice!" He quickly embraced her while she was surprised at the display of memory. "It's so GOOD to see you again!"
"Th-Thanks!" Shinobu stuttered, forcing herself from Ataru's embrace. 'Did I just feel his hand on my rear?' Cautious, but willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now, she blushed a little bit and played with the strap to her bag. "Wow, you remembered all that?"
Ataru grinned, and then tapped his head. "I can remember every girl I've ever met with a moment's notice!" Ataru bragged. Then his smile became a smirk and he smoothly moved an arm to loop behind her back. "And besides, I could never forget such a pretty girl as you." Truth be told, Shinobu had been a dorky-looking, stubby little thing at age ten, and Ataru had only stuck around her because she tolerated his company better than most others, and because her mother baked really good cookies. Now, however...
"So, you moved here from Hokkaido?" Ataru asked idly, trying to hide his excitement at having gotten his arm all the way around Shinobu's back without being slapped.
Shinobu nodded, still blushing. While she felt a little uncomfortable being held so closely by someone she had realistically just met, she had to admit that the attention felt nice. While she was certainly attractive, she was pretty much in the same lot as much of Furinkan's female population when having to play third fiddle to the heavily sought-after Akane Tendo (who left most of the remotely desirable males in pretty bad shape, physically), and the attention-grabbing Sakura (who largely left the school's boys too distracted to bother with lesser females).
"So, I was just heading off to lunch. Would you like to join me?" Ataru asked, trying not to let his natural urges ruin the moment. Getting this close to a girl without being hurt was a rather significant achievement, and until she got pissed off at him, he had the childhood friend thing going for him too.
Shinobu nodded happily. "Yes, I'd like that!"
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Stand now, foolish infidel, and face your doom!" Kuno shouted, wincing as his jaw stung from the speech.
Ranma blinked and turned around. He had just been about to sit down and eat his lunch when Kuno had run cafeteria.
"What do you want?" Ranma asked irritably. The kendoist clearly looked in no condition to fight, and had bandages wrapped around half his head.
Kuno raised his bokken up above his head. "I seek recompense for your earlier mockery, Saotome! No one makes a fool of Tatewaki Kuno!"
"I don't see why they'd have to," Ranma said, "you do such a wonderful job by yourself."
Kuno fumed as chuckles erupted from the small crowd that had started gathering around the two fighters. "SILENCE!! After you taste the bitter grain of utter defeat, we shall see who has the last laugh!" He lowered his bokken at Ranma. "Defend yourself!"
Kuno's first move was a short thrust toward Ranma, aimed to nudge him toward the defensive so that Kuno could use the greater reach of his weapon to its fullest effect.
Ranma's first move was to grab the bokken as it was thrust toward him, stopping it dead.
"Wh-What? Knave! Unhand my weapon! Urgh..." Kuno began tugging at his bokken, but was unable to budge it from Ranma's iron grip.
Ranma sighed. "Listen, Tatewaki..."
"That's upperclassman Kuno to you, fool!"
"Yeah, okay, whatever. Do you really think you should be fighting in your condition? From how hard I hit you, I wouldn't be surprised if those bandages were the only things keeping your head in one piece."
"Ha!" Kuno scoffed, "you think too highly of yourself, Saotome! The Blue Thunder's skull is as thick as any man's!"
Ranma stared at the kendoist as he kept struggling with his bokken. 'Geez, it's not even a challenge to mock him any more... this is a big, fat waste of my time.'
*Yank* Ranma pulled the bokken away from Kuno, and then grabbed one end in each hand. *Snap!*
Kuno's eyes widened as he watched Ranma break his weapon in his hands. "Ho-How d-d-dare you-"
*Pow!*

Ranma turned away as Kuno hit the ground, quite satisfied with the outcome of the "battle". "I knew the loser couldn't take another hit to the head."
He largely ignored the crowd around him that had started clapping and cheering in amazement, quite used to easily impressed crowds (by his standards, anyway). Walking toward one wall of enthusiastic students, the crowd parted like the Red Sea in front of him. Thus he was quite surprised when the gap closed in front of him, and he was suddenly faced with a wall of smiling teenage girls.
Ranma was overcome with a sense of deja vue, and he shuddered as his mind flashed back to the Ninja training grounds he had visited in the past, and their co-ed hot springs. That had almost turned out very messy, and not necessarily the unpleasant type of messy.
"Uh... is there some reason you're all standing there staring at me?" He asked bluntly. He had always been slightly claustrophobic when a group of people closed in around him. When he couldn't solve the problem by forcibly launching them away, it tended to make him a little irritable.
The lead girl, a brunette with fairly long hair blushed slightly while holding a clipboard to her chest. "I'm Yuka Hajiko, president of the Student Council! It's nice to meet you Mr. Saotome!" She bowed deeply.
Ranma groaned slightly. "Student council. Great. Let me guess, there's some kind of rule against beating up other students, right?"
Yuka blinked, then laughed out loud. "Rule against beating up students? Why would we have a stupid rule like that?"
Ranma cocked his head slightly to one side. "So what's this about, then?"
Yuka gestured for Ranma to walk alongside her, and the small group of young women all began to move toward a big, empty table that a few girls were reserving for them.
"Well Ranma, do you mind if I call you Ranma?" Yuka asked hopefully, smiling brightly when Ranma casually nodded. "Well Ranma, we need your help in the formation of a new club on campus. I came up with the idea just today as you were mopping up your first fight with Kuno."
Seeing Ranma raise and eyebrow at her, Yuka elaborated. "We don't need you to participate or anything... although that would certainly be welcome. I just wanted to get some critical information from you for the purposes of the new club. Then all we need is the Vice Principal's go-ahead and then everything's official!" She frowned. "Actually, I already tried to get his approval, but he wasn't there."
Ranma nodded knowingly. "And won't be for some time. Whatever it is his suit's made of, it isn't cheap; I had to struggle just to tear it straight."
Yuka blink-blinked, then turned toward Ranma. "What?"
"I said, 'so what information do you need, exactly?'" Ranma lied, sitting down at the table. He noted that all the girls sat down at the same table, leaning toward him to various degrees.
'Maybe it's a martial arts club?' He thought, 'Can't be. Nothing but girls here. Maybe a girl's martial arts club? But then why would they want to talk to me? They don't know about my curse...'
"Oh, you know, just some basic stuff. Like your hobbies, a little about your family, personal history, virginity..."
Ranma blinked and jerked his head to the side to look at the girl. "What?" Then he blinked again as a blue package was held up before him.
"Oreos?" Yuka offered, smiling brightly.
Immediately forgetting every other part of the current situation, Ranma smiled pleasantly for the first time in the conversation as he took the cookies. "Hey, thanks a lot!"
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Wow, you really went on a 10-year training trip? You must be really good!" Shinobu marveled at her current lunch companion, who attempted to look modest.
Ataru made a play of brushing his fingernails against his chest and then observing them. "Yeah, you could say that I've picked up a thing or two."
Shinobu took a bite of her sandwich. Ataru had suggested that they eat under a tree in the school yard, and while she would have liked to spend lunch with her friends, she had to admit that the idea was too romantic to pass up. Even if Ataru didn't look like much, and his hands were way too free, he did pay her a lot of attention, and Shinobu liked it.
Shinobu swallowed her food, then turned back to Ataru as another curiosity arose. "So, are you as good as your brother? I heard he beat up Kuno this morning!"
Ataru raised an eyebrow and shrugged while smiling. "Better, in some ways."
She blinked. "Really? Then why didn't you take care of Kuno yourself?"
"Well..." Ataru trailed off, stalling for time while he tried to put a positive spin on absolute cowardice. "I don't like violence very much. Martial arts is good and all, but we should find other ways to solve our problems!"
Shinobu nodded slightly, and turned back toward her lunch. "That makes sense."
Ataru grinned and slowly reached his arm behind Shinobu's back. "Besides, I'm a lover, not a fighter..."
'Almost...' Ataru had just about reached the critical point when his eyes suddenly snapped wide open. Shooting to his feet, Ataru's head jerked toward the school cafeteria like a compass pointing the way north, and the young lecher froze, his face a mask of utter seriousness and determination.
Shinobu watched all this with wide eyes, startled. "Ataru! Are you okay?"
Ataru didn't turn toward her. "There is a great disturbance in the Force."
Shinobu blinked. "What?"
Ataru didn't elaborate. "Forgive me, but I must leave now. Can I meet you at five o'clock tomorrow afternoon? We can have dinner."
Shinobu was fairly creeped out by the way Ataru had asked her out without looking at her, but accepted anyway. "Okay. At five. Where can I meet you?"
"Front gate. I've wasted too much time already! Farewell!" In an exceedingly overdramatic manner, Ataru broke into an impressive sprint, dodging the occasional student as he made haste toward the cafeteria.
"Oh Ataru," Shinobu said aloud, clasping her hands together. "I don't know what's wrong, but I hope you'll be okay..."
__________________________________________________________________________________

*Crunch* *Crunch* *Gulp* "My idea of a romantic getaway?" Ranma tapped his chin in thought. "Well, I suppose it would be a trip up to the mountains. You know, fresh air, trees, streams, that sort of thing. That way I could get some training in, too."
Several of the girls at the table nodded as they took notes in little sketchbooks.
Yuka was no exception, and held her pen at the ready as she asked the next question. "Training? Well, then that brings me to the next obvious question: do you train with or without a shirt?"
Ranma blinked, wondering what that could possibly have to do with anything. "Well, I suppose if it's hot, I might train shirtless."
"Excellent!" Yuka exclaimed, making some quick marks in her notepad, "that will certainly add some flavor to our planned photo gallery!"
Ranma sweatdropped. "Hey, what club is this going to be, exactly? You never told me that." He reached for another cookie and popped it in his mouth.
Yuka blushed and looked away. "Well... it's a special kind of club... it's really hard to... well..." suddenly she giggled and bowed her head, turning redder. "I'm so embarrassed!"
Ranma blinked again, and then swallowed his cookie. "What are ya embarr-" *Tap* *Tap*

Feeling someone tapping on his right shoulder, Ranma turned to the right to see who it was. Except that when he looked to his right, nobody was there.
"Looking for somebody?"
Ranma jerked his head to the left, and saw Ataru standing at the head of the table. Apparently he had moved there quickly, as the girls nearest to him jumped in surprise at his voice.
"Ataru! What are you doing here?" Ranma growled, standing up.
Ataru chuckled evilly, causing those nearest to him to scoot away. "Oh Ranma, I'm afraid you're getting slow if such a stupid trick caught you so easily!"
Ranma grit his teeth. "What do you want, moron?"
Ataru smirked. "Want? Oh, I already got what I wanted."
Ataru held up a blue, partially opened package, and Ranma's eyes widened.
"Bwa ha ha!! The cookies are mine!" Ataru laughed.
"NEVER!!!" Ranma shouted defiantly, and lunged for the other boy.
Ataru leapt away, and in fact jumped straight up high enough to grab hold of the scaffolding set in the roof of the cafeteria.
Ranma was unfazed by the feat, and located the nearest empty bench. *Bam!* Slamming a foot down on one end, the entire thing flipped upward, and then teetered back as if it was going to fall down on Ranma. *Wham!* Instead, Ranma kicked the entire thing up toward the ceiling, where it crashed into the webs of lights and wires and steel like a boomerang into a matchstick house.
Ataru jumped away at the critical moment and made a break for the front door, ignoring the shouts of surprise and panic that followed as metal and glass rained down on the unfortunate students of Furinkan.
Ranma launched himself up into the air, and did a somersault before aiming himself at the portion of the wall directly above the door.
*Crash!!* The door frame burst outward, and the doors themselves became a projectile that nearly crushed Ranma's thieving brother as Ranma kicked through the cafeteria wall.

Back inside the cafeteria, Yuka sat back down, chewing slightly on her pen.
"Well, that was... unexpected. Maybe I should bring him pocky next time instead."
Shrugging, she looked up to address the other girls at the table.
"Is there any other business left to discuss?"
One girl raised her hand and stood up. "I think we should contract Nabiki Tendo to obtain and supply pictures for us."
Yuka nodded, frowning. "That's a good idea, but we'll need extra funds..."
"We could buy the negatives from her and develop as many copies as we need! I'm in a photography class!"
"Then we could charge members who want a complete personal collection for the photos to cover our costs!"
Yuka beamed. "Good idea! I'll speak to her immediately after we get permission from the Vice Principal. Anything else? No? Well then, I proclaim the unofficial first meeting of the Ranma Saotome Fan Club complete!"
Several of the girls around the table cheered, and they all started to pack up and get ready to return to class.
One girl turned to Yuka. "Yuka, shouldn't we help Ranma or something? I mean, this seems to be causing kind of a big mess."
Yuka raised an eyebrow. "Help Ranma? Why? All that dork Ataru did was take the cookies. Besides, Ranma can take care of himself." She gestured dismissively to the mess of collapsed scaffolding in the middle of the cafeteria, and inadvertently also drew the girl's attention to the number of students trapped under it and trying to get free.
"Well, yes, I understand, but I still think we should try to contain the situation somehow before it gets out of control."
Yuka rolled her eyes at the other girl's worrying. "Don't be silly. What's the worst that could possibly happen?"
__________________________________________________________________________________

(30 minutes later)
*Crunch* *Crunch* *Gulp* "Man, let me tell you, these things taste a LOT better when you've earned them like this."
Ranma sat cross-legged on the ground, eating his cookies pleasantly. His clothes were charred, and his entire left sleeve was missing from his shirt, while his legs and feet were bare from mid-thigh down. If it weren't for the fact that Ranma himself seemed largely unhurt, one might speculate that he was trapped in a burning building, and then leapt to freedom only to land in a lion's cage.
Next to him, Akane stared listlessly at what was left of Furinkan High. While she was totally free of any sort of physical damage, cosmetic or otherwise, she had a look of disbelief and misery on her face that contrasted strongly with Ranma's current satisfaction.
Half the school building (namely, the top half) was gone. The other half, though mostly intact, held several piles of burnt debris, and somehow a pool of acid had formed in the chemistry labs that threatened to eat away at the floor and drip into the basement. The gym was still on fire, and currently keeping the firefighters busy while paramedics carried off burn patients and treated concussions.
"How did this happen..." Akane mumbled to herself.
Ranma sighed, and quickly ate another cookie. "It was an accident, really. I was trying to keep damage to a minimum."
Akane twitched.
"Quite a big 'accident'," Nabiki remarked, walked up next to her shell-shocked sister and poking her in the side to try and get a reaction. "What caused the fire?"
Ranma flinched. "Well... usually it's Ataru, but this time it's actually my fault..."
"Your fault? How do you figure?" Ranma and Nabiki turned toward one of the paramedics. He was helping another man with a stretcher, which held the charred, delirious body of a middle-aged man.
Nabiki blinked. "Hey, that's the Vice Principal!"
"So that's who he is, huh?" The paramedic asked. "Yeah, we found this guy at the foot of the flagpole, next to an electric cable that had been ripped out of the building wall, where the fire started. Looks like the idiot tried to mess with the wiring for some reason and started the fire after electrocuting himself." The man scratched his head in confusion as he stared down at his patient. "What I can't figure out is why he took all his clothes off and ripped them up into strips..."
Ranma laughed nervously, looking away. "Uh, yeah, imagine that... what a dweeb..."
The paramedics carried the stretcher away, and several more stretchers passed before a particular one approached.
"Hey, can you guys hurry it up? I'm not getting any healthier here, you know?" Ataru berated the men carrying him. As he laid back on the stretcher, arms tucked comfortably behind his head and one leg crossed over the other, he looked more like he was sitting in a hammock than a stretcher.
"Hey, are you sure you're even injured?" One of the men asked angrily.
"Are you sure you're a doctor?" Ataru shot back. "Can't you see all the blood on my clothes?!"
Indeed, there was a large red splotch of liquid wetting Ataru's shirt, and the boy also had a number of small burns and bruises.
The paramedic's eyes narrowed. "That's red paint. We found you in the supply closet."
"With a dented can of red paint on my head," Ataru reminded him. "Now less talk, more lift."
Ranma scarfed down the last of his cookies quickly as Ataru passed by.
"Hey bro! No school tomorrow!" Ataru cheered, giving Ranma the thumbs-up.
Ranma rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I kinda figured that. You going to the hospital?"
Ataru grinned and nodded. "Yuh-huh! Soft beds, 24-hour room service, and all the nurses I can grab!"
"Okay. What time should I expect them to throw you out?"
Ataru considered it. "Around sevenish."
"I'll see you at 6:30," Ranma said, then turned away as Ataru was loaded into the ambulance.

Ranma began to walk toward the front gate, but then noticed that Akane was still staring at the school.
He turned toward Nabiki. "Hey, is she going to be okay?"
Nabiki raised an eyebrow toward her sister. "I think so... but she may need some help getting home."
Ranma nodded in understanding, and then went back toward Akane. Then he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder before walking back to where Nabiki was waiting.
"Hum... she's heavier than she looks," Ranma remarked.
*Thwack!* "Ow!" Ranma's head pitched forward as Akane slammed her elbow into it.
"I heard that! Don't think that just because I'm catatonic I can't hear you insult me!"
Nabiki giggled as Ranma mumbled irritably. "Oh Akane, calm down, would you? At least we don't have school tomorrow."
Then she sidled closer to Ranma. "Say, Ranma? Could you do me a big favor? You see, there are these friends of mine who need some pictures..."

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End Chapter 2