Ranma grew up, but a little differently. He had many pets over the years, though tragedy befell them time after time.
Sometimes tragedy got help.
However, things changed abruptly on a rainy spring day after a postcard and cellphone were delivered.
"-so if one of you were to marry him, the Tendo family line will be secure."
"What kind of boy is he?" fretted Kasumi.
"He's a very nice boy!" said a girl's voice.
Three daughters and a father blinked at that.
POOM!
"Taa daaa!" declared a girl as she spun around in a beam of light, white angel wings fading away from her as she landed. "I am the first angel! My name is Usagi and I am here to be with my Master at last! Ara. Oh. He's not here yet."
Nabiki was the first to recover from shock. "An angel?"
"Yes, in my previous life I was a pet rabbit of his!" Usagi plopped down on a side of the table. "He cared for me with great tenderness when in kindergarten! Unfortunately..."
"...unfortunately..." asked Akane, trying to find something to say that didn't sound too ridiculous or cliche.
"I died," said Usagi sniffling and doing a credible Waterfall Of Tears.
"That must have been terribly... terrible," tried Kasumi.
"Oh it was, it was!" Usagi assured her. "He brought me home and his father... he..."
"Yes?!" Soun asked, hoping that it wasn't what he'd thought it would be.
"HE SAT ON MY CAGE AND CRUSHED ME TO DEATH!" Usagi bawled.
"You think that was something, you should have seen what happened to me."
Another pillar of light, another girl descending on wings that faded away.
Akane considered fainting. "And you are?"
"My name is Ami," said the girl in glasses. "I was a kitten Master rescued from a trash can and carried with him everywhere he went!"
"You're an angel?" Nabiki asked. "You used to be a cat though? So how did you die?"
"The Nekoken training," said Ami, beginning to weep herself.
"The Nekoken?" prodded Akane, accepting a cup of tea from Kasumi and trying to deal with these surreal events.
"Yes," said Ami. "His father found this martial arts technique in a book. Tie up a young student in fish sausages and throw him into a pit of starving cats. I was torn apart, one of the young cats thrown into the pit. I was... was..."
"O-kay," said Nabiki. "So this Ranma's fairly irresponsible and has a lot of animals die around him?"
"IT'S NOT LIKE THAT!" yelled Usagi and Ami into Nabiki's face, incidently causing the middle Tendo daughter's hair to get mussed up.
"No, it's worse than that," said another voice as another girl descended on a pillar of light.
Nabiki raised one hand. "Angel?"
"Yes," said the girl.
"Pet?" asked Nabiki.
"Yes, that is so," agreed the girl. "In my previous life I was a pet bird he had briefly - a raven that had fallen from a nest whom he nursed to health."
"Died?" asked Nabiki, beginning to take notes in case there was a test later.
"Yes. I am Rei. When I tried to fly one day and show Master how well his care had made me," said Rei with a dramatic pause. "I got swatted down by that Lard Ass!"
"She means his father, Genma," translated Usagi helpfully. "He was teaching his son to steal from restaurants at the time."
"So this Ranma is a thief," mused Nabiki.
"He could be a lot better, his father just raised him in such a way that he's a little... confused about some things," tried Ami.
"His father also managed to make him terrified of anything even vaguely catlike," pointed out Rei. "That would mean you too, Ami, even if he could remember you."
Ami hung her head and began sniffling again.
"Uhm, right," said Akane, wanting to do something. Maybe thrashing her father's friend.
"That isn't all!" said yet another voice.
"How many of you are there anyway?" Nabiki asked.
"Twelve," answered Usagi.
"I'll have to get extra teacups," fretted Kasumi.
"I am Minako, a songbird that Master rescued!"
"I am Makoto, in my previous life I was a cute little puppy that Master adored!"
"Okayyy. I still don't see how the trick is done," said Nabiki. "So how did you two die?"
"I died when Genma saw Master with 'yet another stupid pet'," said Minako sadly. "He waited until Master-san wasn't looking and then..."
"He fried her up as a light snack, which was what he did to me as well," said Makoto. "I was his dog, his friend, his companion. We went for walks and hiking, and he was planning on teaching me tricks so that I could practice his Art with him. One day while he was at school his father got hungry and..."
"Ick," said Nabiki, Kasumi, and Akane. Not so much because Genma had eaten dog - the Chinese supposedly did that all the time. It was the eating of a pet and family member that was the repugnant part.
"Ah yes, I remember well the..." Soun's voice trailed off at the look of horror. While not very concerning about these strangers, it coming from his own daughters was more concerning. "Ah well, that's the way we ourselves were trained in the Art."
"I was learning the Art," protested Makoto. "I could have helped. I wanted to help."
Akane tried to figure out how she felt about this. Angels descending from the heavens in pillars of light, revealing that in a past life they were pets of some guy that her father wanted one of his daughters to marry. Pinching herself was painful, so some weird dream was out.
Especially odd was that these angels were all:
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(Posted Sat, 19 Jun 2004 08:10)
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