Card Captor Sakura Fan Fiction / Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ A Fistful Of Omake ❯ Why Nerima? ( Chapter 3 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

omake

"Yeesh, that Ranma fella sure got a passle of problems," the stranger in the hooded robes said in an obviously fake accent, looking at the Well from a distance.

The long neck craning out of the mists was the why. Currently no one was allowed near the Well Of Mimir, after a minor imp had thrown one of Bast's favorite cats into a Ranma timeline.

"Not all the time," said the dragon. "It's just that the more chaotic and strange timelines are the ones that get the most attention. Some are relatively peaceful."

"A peaceful Ranma timeline?" The robed mortal said it as if the entire concept was alien.

"Relatively," repeated the dragon. "Observe."

------

The pudgy man in threadbare clothing ran up to the ledge. "RAN! Get back here! This is not over by a long shot! Listen to your father, boy!"

Ran rolled his eyes in mid-leap, landing lightly in the saddle and reaching for his thick gloves. "Get off that noise, old man! You know the old saying as well as I do."

Gen yelled and waved his fist at his wayward son. "You get down here! You have greater responsibilities than to go joyriding across the continent!"

Ran waved at his father, only using one finger. "Don't care for any more of your schemes, old man, no matter what it is. Just came by to say goodbye, and now we're out of time. 'Dragonriders must fly when Thread is in the sky!'"

With that, his green dragon lifted off and went Between. Now was not the time for yet another idiot scheme from his father. Nor time for that old rivalry with Ryo from Fort Hold, nor the curious relationship between himself and that other green rider Uccha, or even that friendly young Healer he'd met from Honshu - Kasumi. No, now was the time to fly and fight Thread.

This would probably be one of the last Threadfalls, but even then - why return back to his father's care when the old man was definitely persona non grata in three Holds? He'd had enough of that, and Ran was making a name for himself - not interested any longer in trying to redeem his father's.

Nope. Thread was falling, and he was the rider of the green dragon Akane. Now was the time to fly.

--------

"You see," said the dragon. "Same spirit, same soul, many of the same elements. However, the Pern dragonrider Ran is much more at peace."

"Boring," countered the stranger. "And it's a darkline. Ranma doesn't end up with a HUMAN Akane, after all."

"If that's your definition of a darkline, yes." The dragon sighed. "As to the boring part, admittedly it doesn't feature gender-changing curses, and until the Abominators injure that Healer friend of his, he isn't nearly as violent. An adventure is someone else having a hard time, after all. No, the life and times of Ran of Honshu doesn't feature quite the same flavor of insanity you might expect. There is still conflict, however."

"I don't even consider that a Ranma timeline. No Kodachi or Tatewaki Kuno. You can't consider it a Ranma timeline if he doesn't get cursed and isn't an obnoxious jerk."

The dragon considered the odds of just tail lashing this fellow out of the area. Would he get in trouble, or wouldn't he? "Well, if *those* are your only objections."

-------

"Stupid old man. Ya just had to steal food from THEM!" Ranma knelt by the gravesite. "Ya never could think past yer belly, could'ja? Now look at what's goin' on. They cursed you to lose weight, so you could eat all you want but never digest anythin'. We almost made it back to civilization though. Don't know if the docs could'a done something but we almost made it.

"Of course, they cursed me as well, damn 'em. Said that bein' the son of a thief and a thief myself, I needed a new life. And that cause I wasn't manly by THEIR standards, that I ought to be 'un' manned." Ranma looked down at her hands. "Accordin' to THEM, I'll get more 'girly' the longer I'm like this. The only cure from what they were sayin' is for me to act manly by THEIR standards. And then if I do something 'unmanly' like insult someone, steal, or hit someone 'without just cause' - then I'm back to bein' a girl. And if I've really screwed up, they said I'll get even more girlish, whatever *that* means."

Ranma looked down at the hastily dug grave. She wouldn't cry, it wasn't manly. THEY had a largely stoic warrior culture, similar to samurai in some respects. Well she'd beat this thing. She'd *be* a samurai and beat the curse, then she'd go back and beat the snot out of that old witch doctor.

-------

"Where's the Kunos, the Tendos, the Chardins, the Golden Pair?" The robed mortal was demanding of the dragon. "What makes this a real Ranma timeline?"

"There's your curse. He meets the Kunos, does a formal challenge of Tatewaki, defeats him *in Kendo*, and thereby earns Kuno's enmity. He never gets involved with the Tendos, the Chardins, Happosai, the Golden Pair, or those because his father never told him about the Tendo arrangement." The dragon gestured and the view changed. "See. He starts to lose some of his bad habits and we see less and less of the redhaired girl. Flavors kind of 'Ruroni Kenshin' but not bad overall."

"Not a comedy, more a character study." Holding both thumbs down, the robed man made a disgusted noise. "If Akane doesn't get Ranma, it's not a real Ranma story. And none of these wimpy Akane stories either, no fair exchanging Akane and Kasumi's personalities. Remember: Akane always wins and is never wrong."

"Gotcha."

--------

The blue haired girl in the blue and white sailor seifuku backed up against a wall, shaking her head. "No, please..."

The teenage girl raised her cane. "That's enough! Freeze card, your power be confined!"

"Noooooooo!" Sailor Mercury screamed, her body dissolving into white mist which quickly resolidified in a different form.

Akane held up the Freeze card - engraved with the image of a sleeping Sailor Mercury. "All right, *another* easy capture. Maybe the next one..."

--------

"What the HECK was THAT?!"

The dragon blinked down. "Akane learned the ways of magic, and approached it with the same fine attention to detail she uses in cooking, as well as the same obstinate manner she insists on using in trying to breathe water in order to swim. So she follows the instructions in some old scrolls by a guy named Clow Reed where he was making notes on how he created a Key Of Clow."

"Ranma is the FIGHT Card?!"

"She got some details wrong," the dragon said. "Her first capture was unintentional. She turned her eldest sister into the Cooking Card. She also hasn't found a way to permanently release anyone, though she currently thinks that if she's defeated, her cards will be released. So far nobody's managed."

"But that's..."

"Tatewaki became the Sword Card, Kodachi is the Ribbon Card, Genma escaped after seeing his son turned into a playing card, Kasumi is the Cooking Card. Nabiki panicked on finding out that little sister's playing at magic was for real and Kasumi was now just a card in a deck. She shouldn't have told Akane she was going to try and stop her. So Nabiki ended up the Sneak Card. Akane's been challenging youma, the Sailor Senshi, Devilhunters, and anyone else she thinks she has a chance of defeating her."

"But..."

"She's never wrong, she's never been defeated. Of course, at this point she's gone off the deep end. Usual obsessiveness level, don't you think? She's got Ranma. Hmmm. Looks like she just got Sailor Mars/Fire Card too. Racking up quite a score, isn't she?"

"NO! NO! NO!"

The dragon snorted a cloud of frost. "Okay, if *that* didn't work, then how about this one?" Upbeat and brassy theme music began to play.

---------

"Yo, Pops, are you sure about this?" Ranma pulled the car up to the front curb, eyeing the place. "Well, it's fairly sizable for Tokyo, but it's kinda declasse too."

Genma wasn't sure how far he could press this stranger. If only he hadn't lost Ranma all those years ago. Now, reunited when the boy had dropped by to say hello because it was his 16th Birthday, the Ranma he was facing was almost entirely different from the child he'd wanted to raise as a socially inept, dependent, martial artist.

Ranma opened his door, stretching out as he uncramped himself. "So, what kinda treasures are in this place, ya been kinda vague so far."

"Uhm, *great* treasures. You'll see," Genma said, heading for the front door at full speed.

Ranma stared for a moment, then shrugged with a smirk. Tapping a cufflink, he spoke quietly into it. "Y'all there?"

Curiously enough, two voices emanated from the cufflink a moment later. "Am listening." "Hai, Ranchan!"

Ranma's smirk deepened a little bit and he twisted the cufflink to "Transmit Only." Just in case the old man was selling him out.

The interior of the house wasn't as bad as the outside. Kinda homey, actually. At the doorway, Ranma turned and thumbed a remote at his car. The door shut and the alarm system bleeped. Just in case.

Then some human water fountain tried to grab him.

--------

"Hey, I didn't mean to hit him that hard, he kinda startled me." Ranma spread his hands as if to say "what else could I do?"

Akane glared. Not only was she (or one of her sisters) supposed to be engaged to this BOY, he had just used some underhanded sneaky manuever to knock her dad out!

"So, uhm, Ranma?" Nabiki decided to cut to the heart of the matter. She thought he was fairly cute, his clothes were fairly expensive, and that watch certainly was. Was he rich, or wasn't he?

"Yeah?" Ranma looked the place over and decided that if these people had a treasure, it would have to be a secret because their security was nonexistent.

Soun awoke, groaning. "What hit me?"

"Sorry about that," Ranma said. "You startled me. Not a healthy thing to do. So, Pops, you wanna go ahead and tell me where the treasure is?"

"You will marry one of Soun's daughters. Who are, after all, treasures." Genma tried to look solemn and all-knowing from his position behind the table.

Ranma stared for a moment, then chuckled. "Yeah right. Ya had me goin' there for a minute. Now come on, ya been telling me about some great treasure I was supposed to inherit..."

"That would be the Tendo Dojo, after you've married one of my little girls. This is Kasumi, she's 19. Nabiki is 17, and Akane is 16. Pick which one you'd like and she'll be your new bride."

Ranma's smile slowly evaporated. "Ya gotta be kidding me? Why would I even *want* a dojo?"

That question seemed to catch Soun AND his daughters off guard. "B-because it's a matter of honor. You MUST marry one of my daughters and carry on the School of Anything Goes Martial Arts."

Ranma scratched his head. "Well, if it's Anything Goes, I've already got it, and a dojo would just kinda be superfluous to that kinda style wouldn't it?"

"GENMA?!" Soun rounded on his old friend for an explanation.

"Errr, six years ago, I, uhm." Genma began sweating heavily as he tried to cover himself.

"Six years ago he sold me to some guy to pay off his bartab," Ranma said smoothly. "The guy he sold me to tried to use me in a scam, then leave me off with some police. 'Cept I didn't want to be left behind. Food was better, and this guy happened to have tricks that Pops here couldn't pull off if his life depended on it. So I stuck around, applied the old 'anything goes means *anything* can be martial arts training' schtick, and trained with this guy and his gang for awhile. At age 16, I seperated from my sensei, and last I heard he was going into retirement. At least if Zenigata will let him."

"Errr, so. That's nice? Which daughter did you say you'll take?" Soun glared at his friend's son. There were only three answers he was prepared to accept.

Ranma shrugged and stood up. "Don't see any reason to remain. By selling me, Pops essentially sold me out of the clan. Far as I'm concerned, the guy he sold me to is my new clan. So it's not Ranma Saotome no more. It's Ranma Lupin, adopted son of Arsene Lupin III."

"Lupin?!" Kasumi blinked in astonishment, having read of the masterthief's exploits.

"Lupin?" Nabiki mused that over and considered that this might be a *very* good match.

"Lupin?" Akane said. Well, he couldn't be much of a martial artist then. Waitaminute, that meant that this Ranma was an international thief too! Therefore it was the duty of a true martial artist to apprehend him. "Well, I'll just call the police. Stay there and I won't have to hurt you."

Ranma's smirk returned. "Just try."

"Watch me!" Akane said confidently.

*SPLASH!*

"Wow, good aim!" Nabiki said after a moment. "Dead center in the koi pond."

Ranma straightened his vest. "Hey, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing with class."

---------

"No, this is STILL wrong! Akane never makes mistakes! She's perfect and unsullied. Sweet and demure. Even tempered and gentle and trustworthy! She's a perfect virgin goddess!"

"Which Akane are we talking about... ?!" The dragon lunged forward, snagged the cloak, and tugged it away. "AHA! i thought so!"

"Hey! That's mine! Give it back!"

"Got lost again, eh, Ryouga?"