Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Chained World: The Fall of the House of Kuno ❯ By Law! ( Chapter 2 )

This was originally published by me under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi.

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“A man could live with a reptile, even place his own well-being in the creature's care. That wasn't easy, but it could be done. What was truly hard — exhausting, after a while — was the need to keep insisting the scaly damn thing was warm and furry. As if it were a pet instead of a vicious wild beast that could turn on you at any moment.”

— 1824: The Arkansas War, Eric Flint

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Ranma and his father walked, almost stumbling, toward the Tendo dojo. Weary, aching in every joint, filthy, and stinking of sweat — they were more than ready for the dojo's furo. It had been a very good training trip.

As they turned around the last corner toward home, Ranma heard his name called out and looked around to find Hiroshi running up, one of the few non-martial artists he could claim as something resembling a friend. “Hey, Hiroshi, what's up?” the pigtailed boy asked.

“Ranma, you look like you've been out of town for awhile, have you heard about Lord Kuno?” Hiroshi asked eagerly, and Ranma shook his head.

“Heard what?”

“He's dead!” the brown-haired boy said excitedly.

“Dead!”

“Yeah! Rumor says when his doctors told him he had heart problems, he refused to believe them and change his lifestyle. Turns out they were right.”

“Wow,” Ranma said thoughtfully. “So the loon is dead. So what happens to his school?”

“Oh, Tatewaki has already announced that the current level of Kuno support for the family school will continue, he's directed the Kuno family steward to hire a new principal. So it sounds like we get to keep the top-notch teachers and lose the lunatic in charge — cool, huh?”

“Yeah, almost too good ta be true, there's gotta be a hitch,” Ranma mumbled, then yawned. “ `Scuse me, been a great trip, gonna need a good night's sleep ta recover. Catch ya at school tomorrow?”

Hiroshi nodded, “Yeah, sure, sorry. Just thought you'd like to know as soon as possible.”

Ranma chuckled. “Ya mean ya couldn't wait ta be the first ta tell me. Don't worry `bout it, see ya tomorrow.” Hiroshi waved and headed off down the road, and the two Saotomes moved on wearily, their destination now in sight.

As the Saotomes walked through the gate toward the front door, Ranma felt something in him relax and instantly glanced at his father out of the corner of his eye. Sure enough, the bald martial artist was stealthily setting up for a lock-and-throw. Ranma simply shifted his right arm into a position to block, and Genma huffed in disappointment. “You're getting observant, boy.”

“And yer gettin' predictable,” Ranma responded, then glanced to his left and ahead to see Kasumi on her knees tending to the flowers lining the walk. “Hey, Kasumi, how's it goin'?” he called out, then stumbled when she looked up at the approaching pair.

Kasumi looked ghastly — her hair was dull and disheveled, her eyes were puffy and leaking tears, cheeks rubbed a bit raw, and the smile she'd pasted on was a horrible caricature of her normal serene expression. “Kasumi, what's wrong?” Ranma asked, kneeling down beside the older girl, and she sat back on her heels and scrubbed at her face.

“Father committed seppuku last night, with Akane as his second,” she said, and the Saotomes gaped at the pony-tailed girl.

“Seppuku?! By all the kami, why?!” Genma asked.

“He felt his failures as family head and the sensei of the dojo demanded it, to satisfy honor,” Kasumi responded quietly, “and it bought us another week for mourning rituals.”

“Another week? What happens in a week?” Ranma asked as gently as he could, and Kasumi flinched.

“Ask Nabiki, she's in her room. She can explain better than I can,” Kasumi responded. “Just don't try to ask Akane — she performed well last night, but she ... she is not yet whole.”

Ranma nodded, then abruptly pulled the brown-haired girl into a hug. Kasumi clung to him for a long moment, then pushed him away. “Go,” she ordered, “you need to learn what's going on.” Then, as Ranma rose and he and his father hurried toward the front door, Kasumi called out with a tremulous laugh, “But first get cleaned up, you stink!”

 

Hastily cleaned and dressed in a fresh set of his usual red and black Chinese clothes, with Genma at his side, Ranma knocked on Nabiki's door, to be answered by a shouted, “Go away, I'm busy!”

“Nabiki, it's Ranma,” the pigtailed boy responded. “Kasumi said you'd tell us what's going on.”

There was a long silence, then the sound of a chair being pushed back. The door flew open, and the middle Tendo threw herself into a stunned Ranma's arms. “You've been gone a month!” she shouted into his shoulder. “Where have you been?!”

“I told you all when we left that it would be a month,” Genma asserted impatiently. “So what happened?”

The pageboy-styled girl sighed and let go of Ranma, and motioned the two into her room and headed back to her computer while they sat on her bed. Ranma examined the middle Tendo as she sat down with her chair backwards and slouched down with her arms on the chair's back, and was almost as shocked at what he saw as he had been by Kasumi. Unlike her older sister, Nabiki was as neat as ever, but something about her had died — the sharp, alert, slightly mocking personality that had seemed to live behind her eyes was gone, replaced by a dull, guilty, hopeless look.

“Yeah, you did tell us,” she muttered, “that's partly why Dad ... though what you can do ...” She stopped, took a deep breath, and straightened. “All right, I don't know what you can do, but here's what happened.

“It started with Lord Kuno's death less than a week after you left. Tatewaki observed the traditional week of mourning, and then assumed his new position as lord of the Kuno estates. Have you heard about the school?” The two Saotomes nodded, and Nabiki continued, “That was his first act as lord. His second was to spring a trap that his personal accountants must have been planning for months, and I didn't see a hint of it coming.”

“Nabiki —” Ranma started, but the middle Tendo stopped him with an upheld hand.

“I didn't see it,” she harshly insisted. “I don't know how I could have, or what I could have done if I had, but it was my job to handle the family's financial affairs and I didn't get even so much as a hint! You see, the Kuno family's financial handlers, at Tatewaki's orders, bought up the Tendo debt — all of it, including the loans I picked up through second and third parties and thought safely hidden. He's demanded that the two `loves of his life' ” — her lips twisted — “be freed of the influence of the `foul sorcerer Saotome' to accept joining his service as full service, permanent slaves or ...” she paused and gulped, then finished softly, “he will have all the family assets sold to pay off the acquired debts — including the family — immediately. We would have been seized this morning, if father hadn't committed seppuku yesterday and given us a week for mourning. All three of us tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted — he said his total failure as a father and sensei required it, and that it would give you time to get here and save us.”

For a long moment the two Saotomes simply sat and stared at Nabiki, then Ranma shook himself out of his befuddlement and asked, “How bad is it?”

“It's as bad as it can be,” Nabiki answered. “I've been playing off one loan against another, doing whatever it took to keep us afloat, for a couple of years. I was sure I could keep it up until you took over the dojo and opened classes again, but —” She broke off with a half-sob, but when Ranma moved toward her, her glare froze him in place.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I figure that if we sell off all the property and all three of us sisters as temporary, limited use slaves, the debts will be fully paid off in maybe twenty years, more likely thirty — especially if Kuno pushes down the bidding at the slave auction by letting it be known that we're marked as his. At which time, we'd all three be out on the streets, going on forty to fifty years, with only the shirts on our backs.

“Of course, if we went for temporary full use status, we could hold onto the property and pay off the debt in maybe five or ten years — but Akane would be certain to be acquired by Kuno. I doubt he'd be able to hold down the price, but for me and Kasumi he wouldn't want to and he'd pay whatever it took to buy Akane's contract. Hell, that alone would probably bring in enough yen to bring it down to five years,” she finished bitterly.

The Saotome men simply sat and stared for a long moment, then Ranma stood. “So we have six days ta come up with an answer?” he asked, and at Nabiki's affirmative he headed for the door, calling over his shoulder, “Don't worry, Nabiki, yer dad's death won't be wasted.”

“You have a plan?” she asked, hope warring with the guilt and despair in her eyes, and he turned in the doorway to smile back at her reassuringly.

“Not yet,” he said confidently, “but I will — count on it.”

 

Ranma lay on his back on the roof of the Tendo home and stared up at the peaceful stars that had been his friends for so many years, most of those years his only friends. He heard a soft thud to his right and turned to find Akane rising from her jump to the rooftop, and sat up as she walked toward him. His dark-haired fiancée sat down beside him, and for a time the two simply stared out into the night.

Finally, Akane said, “You didn't come see me when you got back.”

“Kasumi said not ta bother ya about what happened, to ask Nabiki. And after she told us, well — I've been up here thinkin'.” He turned to look at the youngest Tendo, and added, “But yer right, what ya had ta do — I should a' come see ya. I'm sorry.”

Akane drew in a shuddering breath and hugged her knees to her chest and, when Ranma put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him, laid her head on his shoulder. “It's all right,” she murmured, “I've given up on you demonstrating any social graces.”

For a time, again the two sat with Akane leaning against her fiancé and stared silently out across Nerima. Then, “So have you come up with a plan?” she asked, and felt Ranma's nod along the top of her head.

“Yeah, I have,” the aqua-transexual boy responded.

“So what is it?” she softly asked when he failed to continue.

“I can't tell ya yet, there's some people I need ta talk to first, see if it'll work.” Ranma answered quietly. Besides, he thought with unusual wisdom, you aren't gonna like it at all, why spoil the moment?