Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Random Chance? ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Random Chance?

By Lord Raa

Part Three

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Disclaim-me-do: Glaucus! Remember the ploughshare!

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Previously on “Random Chance?”...

“I hear that you are the one that injured the fair Akane Tendo.”

“Yeah, what of it?” Ranma asked puzzled.

“I am here to avenge my fierce tigress! Have at you!”

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Ranma watched as the bokken wielding boy came charging at him.

“What are you gibbering about?”

Kuno stopped, slightly stunned at the attitude of the cur that thought he could get away with injuring the delicate and pure Akane Tendo.

“I heard that you managed to defeat Akane Tendo, what is your name?”

“I'm…”

“Is it not proper tradition for one to give his name? I am Tatewaki Kuno, rising star of the Kendo world, also known as the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High!”

Ranma frowned as he was cut off by Kuno. `That seems a bit too familiar.'

“I'm Ranma Saotome, heir to the Saotome school of Anything Goes. What's it to you who I beat in a dojo challenge?” Ranma asked, shifting the pack on his back in preparation for a fight.

“Just because you defeated Akane Tendo, no doubt using some nefarious tactic, it does not give you the right to date her,” Kuno said as he pointed the bokken at Ranma.

The students that looked at the scene unfolding before them, it seemed that they would have to talk to Nabiki about this new boy.

“Beat her to date her? What're you on? I defeated her so I wouldn't have to date her,” Ranma explained.

“So you have no intentions to court the fair Akane?” Kuno asked suspiciously.

“No,” Ranma answered tiredly. “Can this wait? I have classes to go to, you know.”

Ranma walked past Kuno, intent on getting through the day without fighting. He got halfway to the door when something twigged in Kuno's brain.

“You must suffer the wrath of the Heavens for you mistreatment of Akane Tendo!”

Kuno charged Ranma again, intent on striking the insolent cur down for his crimes against his beloved.

Ranma spun round has he leapt to the right. He landed awkwardly on his previously injured ankle.

Gritting his teeth, the pigtailed martial artist took up a ready stance. “You accuse me of cheating when you attack from behind? You have some nerve, Kanto.”

“The name is Kuno, fool. And you shall pay for you slurs! Strike-strike-strike-strike-strike-strike-strike-strike-strike-strike-strik e-strike-strike-strike!” Kuno shouted as he rapidly stabbed the wooden sword at Ranma.

Ranma easily managed to keep the thrusts from touching his chest. He waited for the bumbling samurai wannabe to leave an opening, when he saw one he stuck out with a lightning punch to the solar plexus.

As Tatewaki staggered back, Ranma decided enough was enough and finished his opponent with a roundhouse kick to the jaw, the blow flooring the reality avoiding fool.

Dusting his hands off, Ranma turned to the main entrance and headed for the office to complete his enrollment. He was surprised by the cheers he got from the crowd of girls, but waved nonetheless.

“Can you believe he took Kuno out like that?”

“Well he did beat Akane.”

“He's not bad looking, either.”

“He's so cool!”

Nabiki heard the comments from the crowd of neglected girls and smiled when one of them asked if she knew anything about Ranma.

“I know one or two things about him. I think you know my rates,” the middle Tendo girl replied with a toothy grin.

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“Class, we have a new stud, er student joining us today,” the attractive, blonde female teacher in her mid-twenties corrected herself without blushing too heavily. “Please introduce yourself.”

“Hi, I'm Ranma Saotome and I'm pleased to make your acquaintance ,” Ranma introduced himself with a bow. “I'm heir to the Saotome School of Anything Goes

Martial Arts.”

The others in the class made the connection between what Ranma said and what style Akane practiced.

“Anything Goes? Does that mean you and Akane are related in some way?” one of the girls in the front row asked.

“Sort of, but not really. It's a bit complicated. I can explain it, but it might take up a bit of the lesson time.” Ranma turned to his teacher. “Is that ok, sensei?”

“I'll make an exception for today, Mr. Saotome.”

“Ok. Well, I've been training in martial arts since I was six. I've been all over the country and abroad to Thailand, Korea, and most recently China.”

“Yes, I saw you in action this morning,” the teacher, Miss Emi Fujishima, interrupted. “You were very good.”

“Well, the plan was for me to unite the schools of Anything Goes by marrying the heir of the Tendo Branch when we were old enough.”

Akane received a few envious glares from the single females in the class, the teacher included.

“However, as I don't want my life to be decided by anyone but me, I took exception to my father's plan. We reached an agreement where I challenged Miss Tendo to a duel of Anything Goes.”

“Was this how Akane got hurt?” Sayuri asked. Akane wouldn't tell her the details over the phone and she had not yet had a chance to talk to her about her injured leg.

“Yes. Though despite what Cujo said out in the yard, I beat her using basic moves,” Ranma said with a sad shrug.

“Cujo?” the teacher asked.

“You know, the idiot with the bokken.”

“Ah, you mean, Kuno. You beat him easily enough. What was it, five moves?”

“Two. But that's not important right now,” Ranma replied with a smile. “When I won that bout, I managed to convince my father to take me home to see my mother for the first time in ten years.”

“And why did you pick this school?” Yuka asked. She knew that Akane wasn't happy about Ranma being in her class, especially since he beat her so easily.

“I didn't, you can thank my father for that.”

Many of the ladies present were indeed thankful for Genma's quick thinking. Though if they knew that the plan was to get Ranma closer to a Tendo, they'd be a little less thankful.

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Elsewhere in Furinkan High, Nabiki Tendo's class was being disrupted by an incensed Tatewaki Kuno.

“That foul cur,” the bokken wielding fool raged. “I cannot believe that he is allowed to attend these hallowed halls with his tainted presence. To think that he injured your fair sister and escaped before you could seek police assistance, astounds even me.”

The teacher looked up and noted that Kuno was talking AT Nabiki Tendo, rather than TO her.

“Kuno, will you stop causing a ruckus in my lesson?”

“How can I sit still in the knowledge that the one who assaulted Akane Tendo walks free? Even the mercenary Nabiki Tendo agrees with me.”

“I see. In that case you can both continue your plot for revenge at lunchtime. You know where the buckets are, Kuno.”

Nabiki smirked at the idiot kendoist.

“The Heavens weep at such injustice!” Kuno screamed at the teacher. “You must allow me to avenge the humiliated Akane Tendo.”

“I've had enough trouble from you today Kuno, please do not make it worse for all involved,” the middle aged man added without looking up from his book. “Get out in the hallway with the buckets.”

“But I need the assistance of Nabiki Tendo,” Kuno whined.

“Fine, take your partner in crime with you.”

Nabiki growled at Kuno before getting up from her seat. `This is going to cost you a lot of money, Kuno.'

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Outside the classroom, Kuno demanded more answers from Nabiki.

She ignored him until she heard a wallet being pulled out and a male voice counting out a sum of money.

“I require the facts about this Saotome wretch, Nabiki, 10,000 yen,” was the first thing that Kuno that Nabiki actually paid attention to.

After placing her buckets on the ground, Nabiki pocketed the offered cash.

“Right, first things first, Kuno-chan: he's Ranma Saotome of the Saotome School of Anything Goes. You know how good he is, he whipped your ass in the blink of an eye. Our fathers wanted him to get engaged to one of us to unite the schools and take over the dojo and guess what? He didn't want to.”

“So he wasn't lying when he said he had no designs on your fair sister?” Kuno asked.

“Correct, Kuno-chan.”

“The fool has no taste in women,” Kuno foolishly commented.

“And that is all you're getting for your money, Kuno,” Nabiki snidely finished her presentation on Ranma.

“But I need more,” Kuno protested.

“Nope, not going to happen today.”

“Nabiki,” the teacher called out.

“Yes, Sensei?”

“You may come back in. Kuno you stay out there until I call you back in.”

Kuno remained silent until the teacher stepped away from the door.

“I must avenge the ill-treated Akane Tendo,” Kuno vowed. “Akane Tendo, I shall rescue you from harm at the hands of that low-born cretin!”

With that, Kuno rushed off to hunt down the bane of his love's life.

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Ranma Saotome was answering the questions thrown his way as best he could when the classroom door was slammed open.

“There you are, you villainous fiend!” Kuno shrieked at the pigtailed youth.

“Pardon?” Miss Fujishima asked incredulously.

“The despicable Ranma Saotome has evil plans for the virtuous Akane Tendo!”

“No I don't,” Ranma quickly replied.

“Well, since that's settled, Mr. Kuno, you may now go back to your own class,” said the teacher, trying to resolve the matter quickly.

Kuno, though, was having none of it. “But can you not see that he has unholy desires for the fairest maiden in Nerima?”

“I've been here for a weekend, how am I supposed to know who the `fairest maiden' in Nerima is?” Ranma shot back. “Besides, what makes you think you know my taste in women? Hell, I don't even know what my taste in women is!”

Unsurprisingly, this would go on to make Ranma a seriously hot topic when it came to the gossip at lunchtime.

“Don't you try to make the Waters of Truth murky with your Mud of Lies!” Kuno, still livid, pointed a bokken at Ranma.

Ranma just looked at the older student in disbelief.

“For the last time, Mr. Kuno, I'm asking you to return to your own classroom,” Miss Fujishima said firmly.

Kuno looked at the faces of all the women present, added two and two together and got pi as the result.

“I see that he has ensorcelled all of the females present with his vile magics. This leaves me no option but to defeat him to break his spell.”

Ranma blinked. “That sounds an awfully lot like a challenge.”

“Have at you, demon!” Kuno shouted as he leapt towards Ranma.

“Here is no place to fight, follow me!” Ranma opened a window and jumped out.

Kuno followed out, not realising what floor of the building they were on. The rest of the class rushed to see Ranma crouching after a three point landing.

As the pigtailed martial artist turned as he stood up, he saw Kuno plummet like a stone. It was now that Ranma realised the blowhard was possibly the biggest idiot he'd ever seen.

At least his father realised that he had created techniques that were too effective and that they needed to be sealed away.

Rushing in, Ranma caught Kuno and dumped him unceremoniously on the grass.

“Come on, Keno, that was only a three storey drop. I thought you were a martial artist, but it looks like you're just a stick waving idiot with a big mouth,” Ranma taunted the slightly dazed boy.

“The name is Kuno!” the bokken wielding boy shouted. “Since you seem unable to grasp that fact, I shall beat it into you!”

“In your own time, you big girl's blouse!” Ranma continued his taunts.

“Have at you, demon!” Kuno yelled before charging in, swinging his practice sword wildly.

“If you're a `rising star' of the kendo world, Kojak, then I'd say that kendo has a future as bright as dinosaur taming,” Ranma mocked as he dodged the sloppy strikes while yawning in an exaggerated fashion.

Kuno, unable to contain his rage any more, started his ultimate attack: a series of rapid thrusts that won him many tournaments.

Unfortunately, this was the same manoeuvre that he showed Ranma this morning, so Ranma stopped the wooden blade on the third thrust and stared Kuno down.

“Now listen up, Dodo,” he growled, “I don't really want to be here.”

“Then why are you here, you fiend?” Kuno demanded. “Do you not understand the shame she must feel at being dishonoured and disgraced after her embarrassing defeat by such wretched wrongdoer as yourself?"

Ranma rolled his eyes at Kuno's words.

“And my name is KUNO!” was yelled at, and properly ignored by, the pigtailed martial artist.

“If it makes you feel any better, I spent more time taking her down then I did you. And I dislocated my ankle in between fights,” Ranma smirked.

Deciding that now was the time to end this, Ranma chinned Kuno with a left jab.

He turned to the main entrance and took his class's applause in his stride, as his bow showed. Though to be fair, the teacher's wolf whistle did surprise him.

`Should she even be doing things like that?' Ranma asked himself.

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Elsewhere in Nerima, the eldest Tendo daughter was making her way to the Saotome home. She needed to talk to Nodoka about Ranma, specifically when during their courtship it would be reasonable to expect him to put out.

Kasumi arrived at the house and straightened her kimono before knocking on the door.

Nodoka answered the door. “Yes, can I help you?”

“Good morning, my name is Kasumi Tendo. I'm looking for Nodoka Saotome.”

“I'm Nodoka Saotome. Did you say Tendo, as in the Tendo Dojo?” Nodoka asked.

“Yes, may I come in? I'm here to talk to you about Ranma,” Kasumi explained with a blush.

“What about my son?”

“Well, he was supposed to marry a Tendo daughter, but he left before we could make it official.”

“Please, make yourself at home,” Nodoka ushered the girl inside. `This is a good sign.'

Kasumi gave a small smile, thankful that she'd had the nerve to take the initiative on this matter.

As the two women sat down for some tea, Nodoka asked about the arrangement between the families.

“Well, Father said that he wanted one of us to unite the schools of Anything Goes with the Saotome branch to ensure the continuation of the dojo. It was a bit sudden,” Kasumi paused to take a sip of her tea, “because soon after Father told us, Ranma and your husband arrived.”

“How did Ranma take to the news?”

“It looked like it was the first that he'd heard of it.”

“How did he react when you told him that you were interested in him?” Nodoka asked, intrigued as to why Ranma wouldn't want such a nice girl as the one in front of her.

“I didn't get a chance to tell him, Mrs. Saotome,” Kasumi confessed. “He said that he didn't want to have his life decided for him and made a deal that gave him a bit of space.”

“Oh, so he doesn't know how you feel?”

“No, not yet,” Kasumi looked sad. Then she had a determined look in her eye “I plan to tell him as soon as I can.”

Nodoka smiled broadly at this. “Kasumi, please tell me about your family.”

“My father's name is Soun and my mother's was Reiko. I have two younger sisters, Nabiki who's 17 and Akane who's 16,” Kasumi started.

“I knew a Reiko Tendo. Unfortunately, she passed on about seven years ago,” Nodoka recalled.

“That's when Mother died,” Kasumi added. `This is getting spooky.'

“I think I have a picture of her somewhere, please wait a moment,” Nodoka said before getting up. `This can't be a coincidence.'

Nodoka quickly found a picture of her and Reiko, she saw the look of astonishment of Kasumi's face when the girl recognised the other woman.

“You knew my mother?”

“Knew her? I worked with her for several years. Have you ever heard of the `Tales of Ribaldry' series?” Nodoka asked.

“Aren't they, #ahem# adult literature?” Kasumi inquired with a blush.

“They were romance stories with a lot of details when it came to the good parts,” Nodoka replied with a smile. “And your mother wrote them with me.”

“Mother was part of the Red Dragon team?” Kasumi was shocked that her memories of her mother were not reconciling with the knowledge that she was part of a highly successful writing team, let alone one that was infamous among her housewife friends.

“Yes, that's probably why you have two sisters, Kasumi,” Nodoka added, not realising what she was doing.

“But Mother could never do something like that,” Kasumi protested.

“Take this home and read it, Kasumi dear. It's the last manuscript we were working on before your mother died. I think she'd want you to have it,” Nodoka explained as she handed a barely bound pile of papers to the stunned girl.

Kasumi recognised the handwritten notes on the paper. “This is Mother's writing.”

“Talk to your father about Reiko, Kasumi-chan,” Nodoka suggested with a knowing smile.

“I will, Mrs. Saotome.” Kasumi bowed in thanks.

“Please, call me Auntie Nodoka.”

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At Furinkan High School, Ranma made his way back to his classroom by jumping up to the window and pulling himself in.

“Ranma,” the teacher addressed the new student. “Did you really dislocate your ankle a few days ago?”

“It was dislocated for me,” Ranma replied as he sat down. “I was sparring with my dad on Saturday. Why?”

“Well if we ignore the fact that you did just jump out the window, you should be using a crutch. You don't want to do permanent damage to your fine body,” Emi explained.

“It only hurts a little bit when I use my foot to knock bricks out the air,” Ranma tried to reassure the class.

“Pardon?” Akane asked. “Why would you want to use kicks to deflect bricks?”

“It's all part of the Anything Goes training to build up leg speed and stamina. Just breaking bricks on the ground doesn't help you win fights against seasoned opponents, you know.”

Akane's face darkened at what she took to be a casual reference to her loss at the hands of the arrogant boy. As soon as Doctor Tofu gave the all clear to start training again, she would train twice as hard to beat the big-headed Saotome.

Still, she wouldn't have liked to try jumping out of the window any time soon.

The teacher started to tell Ranma that he should take it easy but the door burst open, interrupting her train of thought.

“Is Ranma Saotome here?” a man in a conservative blue suit asked the class.

“I'm Ranma Saotome, what can I do you for?”

“I'm the Vice-Principal and I'd like to have a word with you,” the man answered.

“About what?”

“I think you know, young man.”

“Well, you're wrong. I don't recall doing anything wrong today,” Ranma said, confused by the man's presence. “I was on time this morning and my registration papers are all in order, so what do you want to talk to me about?”

“Well, the nurse is concerned that you injured yourself with your little stunt just now, and she wants to examine you. We don't want you to ruin such a promising athletic career,” the man finally explained. `Not when there are interscholastic sports contests for us to win,' he added silently.

“Ok. I was kind of worried that you might kick up a stink about that moron outside,” Ranma confessed as he got up.

“Kuno? The only reason he's not been expelled is his father is the principal,” Miss Fujishima snorted in disgust.

“Yeah, but what can you do about it?” Ranma rhetorically asked with a shrug.

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To be continued…

This chapter was pre-read by Chi Vayne, Ghost in the Machine and a bloke called Happy Pig. Blame them for any mistakes you see.

Or of course, you could always move on with your lives.

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