Fan Fiction / Crossover Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ There Loss Her Gain ❯ On the First Day We Met ( Chapter 2 )

Their loss, Her gain

By Rippen Drakuzz and Mari

Disclaimer: All the characters are the © properties of Rumiko Takahashi. Some parts of the movie "Carrie" are the © properties of Steven King and MGM/UA. Cassie is the © property of Rippen Drakuzz and me.

Chapter two: On the First Day we Met.

The redhead ignored everything as she sat at the desk, muttering about how her life sucked in general and she'd really like for it to end. She'd never give up, it just wasn't in her nature, but that didn't mean she couldn't find a way to get out of her troubled life. She was also letting out some steam as she spoke.

"I can't take it any longer." She growled as she made a fist. "Life's nothing but trouble. And every new person I meet only adds to my problems." Then, letting her emotions get out in an outburst and with no intention of ever following with what she said she continued. "Maybe I should just kill myself."

Ranma was alone in the room, but a certain new student at the school heard those words as she was about to enter the classroom. "Why?"

Ranma heard a new voice out of nowhere. She looked around and saw a new girl in the room. Ranma may not be very bright, but she could tell that this new girl was a foreigner, she was about her age and was wearing a school uniform. It dawned on her that this was probably an exchange student. *No other reason for her to be here.* She thought to herself.

She had this pretty wavy hair of strawberry blonde with little yellow butterfly clips. Cute little freckles on her cheeks and pretty medium but well developed body. But what really got Ranma's attention were her emerald green eyes, which seemed to be on the birch of tears. This girl may be plain looking but for some reason Ranma found this girl very attractive and she felt a slight blush on her cheeks.

"Um excuse me, may I help you?" She asked the new girl with the little English she had been able to learn on the road. Hinako sensei might be a strict disciplinarian, but her English class was terrible.

The new girl stared at the little redhead with tears in her eyes. "Why would you want to kill yourself?"

Ranma was taken aback by the question and stared at the new student with wide eyes. "You heard what I said?" Seeing the foreigner nod the martial artist cursed inwardly. Those words were spoken out of frustration. It was an outlet to try and deal better with the current situation, or rather mess that was her life. But it seemed like someone was there to hear those words, and since she didn't know Ranma she took the words to heart. The worst part of all was that the new girl seemed to be in the brink of tears. If Ranma hated anything above all else it was seeing a girl cry. *Well… Maybe c-c-c-cats are the thing I hate the most.* But seeing girls cry was definitely up there too.

Ranma started laughing nervously and scratched the back of her head. "Would you believe it was a joke?" Seeing her words had no effect, and the girl was about to start really crying, she panicked and jumped to her feet. "Please don't cry! I didn't mean it… really."

The redhead was seriously panicking now. She would probably do anything for the other girl to stop the tears before they started flowing from her eyes. "Listen, I'm really sorry if you heard me say those things." Ranma apologized to the girl for her actions. "I was just letting out some steam that's all."

The new girl's stopped her tears for just a while. "You were?" She asked in still a quivering voice.

"Yeah." Ranma simply replied. "I was in a bad mood, that's all." She gave her a small smile. "You see, I have this terrible condition called Foot In Mouth disease, I always say things I never meant to say."

The girl smiled and started to giggle a bit. "I'm sorry." She apologized. "I shouldn't laugh at you like that."

"Oh no no." Ranma reassured the girl with a confident smile. "It's good that you are laughing, it means that you are not crying anymore." She stated the obvious.

The girl touched her face and noticed that, though her face still had some moisture from her tears, she wasn't crying anymore. "You're right." She was glad that she wasn't crying. "Thank you…um." Now she realized that she didn't know the girl's name.

"Ranma, Saotome Ranma." Ranma introduced herself. Now that the crisis was avoided, that this girl was smiling instead of crying, Ranma allowed herself to relax.

The new girl frowned in confusion. "Ran-ma? What does it mean?" She knew that Japanese names had a meaning, but even if she was good enough in the language to get by she didn't understand certain things yet. Names being a part of that.

"Wild horse." Ranma said in English for the girl to understand, before switching back to Japanese. It would do her good to practice if she was to attend Furinkan. Even if the academic level was low she would have trouble adapting if she wasn't fluent enough with her Japanese.

The new girl giggled. "Strange name for a girl."

Ranma was about to protest when realized she was in her cursed form. She'd had the curse for long enough to forget about it, even when in her cursed form. She laughed with the girl and scratched the back of her head in a gesture that the American couldn't help but find cute. "Yeah… Kind of a weird name for a girl alright." It was then that she got her first good look at the giggling girl. Before she was too worried to notice.

Unlike many people in Japan Ranma wasn't concerned with a person's race, something that didn't prejudice her tastes. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she'd never really become immersed in her country's culture, having been raised on the road and learning only how to fight. Regardless of the reason Ranma couldn't help but blush slightly at the sight of the carefree girl. She tried her best to hide it, but Ranma had never been good at anything social and so she failed miserably. *Great! Now she's going to think I'm weird even before she finds out about the curse.* It was inevitable. If she attended their school she'd find out within a few hours.

The fact that Ranma blushed didn't escape the girl's notice, and a small ray of hope shone for her as she thought that maybe this cute redheaded Japanese girl could find her attractive.

Ranma blushed even harder at the look the girl was giving her and struggled to find something to say. "So… um… What's your name?"

"It's Cassie Lyte." Cassie told Ranma her name shyly with a slight blush on her cheeks.

"Cassie, I like it, it's pretty." Ranma told Cassie how much she likes her name.

"Thanks." Cassie said with a smile at the compliment. "It's not as fancy, but I'm okay with it."

"So where are you from?" Ranma realized that she was American, but she still wanted to get to know her better.

"Well I was originally born in Alexander, Arkansas but my parents work for this company that requires us to move around a lot." Cassie said, telling Ranma a little bit of her life.

"Really?" Ranma's interest was picked. She and Cassie had something in common, travelling a lot. Her stay at the Tendo Dojo had been the most time she could remember staying in one place. "What kind of places did you lived in?" Ranma was curious. Maybe they'd been to the same place. It was rare for her to find someone she could talk to about something that had her interested.

Cassie was really excited by all this, no one had ever been interested about her before. "Oh we used to lived in cities in California, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, New York, Illinois, and Nevada." After naming those cities she moved to listing the countries she'd visited during her life. "Then there's France, Italy, England, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Germany, and China."

That last part really captured Ranma's attention. "You've been to China?"

Cassie simply nodded.

"Have you ever visited a place called Jusenkyo?" Ranma needed to know if Cassie came across the cursed springs. Whether she might know if the Spring of Drown Man is there or if she fallen into one of them. With her life she was not one to discard such a huge coincidence as that.

Cassie just shook head. "Nope I don't think I've ever heard it." She confessed. "We were only in China a few weeks for an import marketing project that my parents were working on, so we hardly visited any places over there."

Ranma was kind of disappointed when Cassie told her that she never been to Jusenkyo. But at the same time she was kind of glad that she didn't. She was starting to like the American girl and didn't want to find out she was cursed as well. That was something she didn't wish for anyone. *Well... maybe Kuno.* "Oh, well what do you think of Japan so far?" She asked politely, which is was pretty amazing for Ranma to be polite.

"This is my first time here." Cassie admitted to Ranma truthfully. "But I did study on it in all my other schools. It seems pretty nice, plus I like to watch a lot of anime."

"Really?" Ranma asked with a raised eyebrow. With her life she'd never seen much anime. Why would she need to if her life was crazier than most animes anyway?

Cassie nodded happily. "I really like anime. Particularly Tenchi Muyo. Tenchi's girl trouble is so funny."

Ranma just stared at Cassie in confusion. *She thinks girl trouble is funny?* Not that she could blame her. If she wasn't in a worse situation than that Tenchi guy she would find it funny too. "So... Cassie... You going to be in this classroom?" Seeing the girl nod she couldn't help but smile a little. "Be ready for the teacher. She's a little odd." *A little odd?!* Ranma berated herself internally. Saying Hinako was a little odd was like saying Happosai was just a little perverted.

Cassie didn't find it strange. She'd been to some interesting places. What could be so odd about a Japanese teacher?

"Ran-chan!" A female voice was heard and both teenagers turned to see a cute brown-haired girl dressed in a boy's school uniform enter the room. She was smiling widely as she approached the two. "You're early!" There was a respectable amount of surprise in her voice.

Ranma smiled back. Whenever Ukyo wasn't trying to press her claim as a fiancée she was very easy to get along with. "Hey, Uc-chan! Got up early and decided to arrive on time for once."

Ukyo sighed. "That bad, huh?"

"Excuse me?" Cassie asked, not understanding the sigh. She was a little put off by the ease with which Ukyo and Ranma spoke to each other. Even if she knew the small redhead would obviously have close friends she couldn't help being a little jealous.

Ukyo blinked and for the first time seemed to see they weren't alone. She smiled at the foreign girl. "How're you doing, sugar? Kunoji Ukyo."

"Uc-chan and me are childhood friends." Ranma explained.

The brown-haired girl smiled and winked. "And I'm Ran-chan's cute fiancée." This elicited a sigh from Ranma, which went conveniently unnoticed by the chef.

Cassie had this confused look on her face when Ukyo told her that she was Ranma's fiancée. I didn't know that even allow same sex marriages in this country. She tried to understand all of this, Even most parts of America are having a hard time to accept that. Cassie regained her composure. "Well that is wonderful," The new girl did her best to polite about it, "I think it's very brave about what you two are doing. Back in America, some people usually frown at things like that."

"Frown at what, sugar?" Ukyo repeated, she had no idea what Cassie was talking about.

Ranma on the other had had this dreaded look on her face like she was about to face her execution. Great now Cassie will think of me as freak like everyone else. She predicted with a sense of dread. With her luck it was inevitable that her secret would be revealed.

"At a marriage between women." Cassie explained, feeling her hopes crashing down. Ukyo was really cute now that she studied the chef more carefully.

Ukyo blinked a couple of times before smiling in understanding. "You don't know about the curse yet, do you?"

"Curse?" Cassie asked with a frown on her face.

Before Ukyo could elaborate Ranma interrupted. She decided it would be best if it was she that showed her curse to Cassie instead of learning it from another person. "Mind if I tell you after school?" She gave Ukyo a significant glance. "Some people take it better than others."

Ukyo understood the meaning behind the look and blushed slightly in embarrassment. Sometimes she forgot just how humiliating it was for Ranma when new people found out about the curse. "Sure thing. How about getting together at my restaurant?" She turned to Cassie with a smile. "So what do you say?"

"Well okay," Cassie accepted the invitation, "sounds like fun."

"See you guys later." Ukyo waved good-bye to Ranma and his new friend and left for her class.

"You must be lucky to have someone like her." Cassie confirmed to Ranma. "I hope that your parents will be okay about it."

"Actually it was my father who arranged the engagement" Ranma confessed reluctantly.

"Arranged?" Cassie repeated, Man this country must be bolder than I believed, she told to herself.

"It's a long story," that's all that Ranma could tell her, "I'll explain all about it later when we get to Ukyo's place."

"Oh okay," Cassie accepted Ranma's answer as the two of them took their seats.

At least I made a new friend, Cassie silently talked to herself, looking down at her desk, maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. She tried to convince herself as students started filling the room.

Man that new girl is cute, Ranma-chan quietly commented on Cassie, then she remember a certain hateful tomboy, what if Akane thinks I'm being a pervert again, Ranma-chan was now worried about the new girl's safety. She would hurt her if she us together.

I hope she would handle my secret. The two of them thought of that at the same time. Wondering if either of them will still like each other. The class now begins.

It looks as though Ranma and Cassie hit it off okay. But what happens when Akane sees them together? Will she gain another rival for Ranma's affection? Will Cassie be able to reveal her secret? Find out next time in "Their Loss Her gain"