They were typical of the Nekomimi Tribe, with a mainly human appearance. There were differences, particularly internal, but there were some external differences as well.
Tails and ears if one just glanced. Some offspring of human-tribal ended up with tail-less offspring, or they'd have normal human ears but a tail, but the overwhelming majority of mixed race offspring ended up looking just like the Tribal parent did.
Some differences were becoming apparent now that it was 1981, twenty two years after the Tribals had first encountered humanity. Tribals aged differently, going through rapid periods of growth to reach a "stage" and then remain at that stage until the next period of growth. The Tribals remained young looking for years, seemingly stuck in adolescence until their thirties or forties. Their next stage had a certain maturity but still looked mainly young.
This could have some odd effects with the Tribal seeming to be years younger than their human classmates despite having grown up alongside them. Then the growth spurt and the Tribal would outpace their contemporaries until the humans caught up again.
The Tribals were also prone to differences in sleep schedules. Soun's wife was of Nekomimi tribe, which meant that in the feline manner she was up at odd hours of the night and prone to taking naps at intervals during the day. Naturally, her three daughters had the same tendencies.
It was also determined that something the Japanese called otaku-ism existed within many of the tribals. They would learn of some particular bit of fantasy or history or culture, and they would embrace it with singleminded enthusiasm. The rest of the world called it by a variety of other names of course. Sometimes condescendingly, sometimes with annoyance, sometimes with amusement.
Which, of course, led to German wolfboy samurai or Peruvian foxgirl Viking skalds or other such strangeness.
In the case of the three Tendos this of course manifested a little differently.
K'thi was of the Nekomimi tribe and in their usual manner of trying to blend in, at least a little bit, had dug into the Japanese culture with that unrestrained focus that Nekomimi sometimes had. She had found that Soun Tendo was descended from a line of martial artists who had practiced the Tendo naginata-ryuu.
Unfortunately, the naginata-ryuu was practiced by another branch of the family. What this branch had was apparently a martial arts style called Anything Goes.
Soun had been more than a little surprised when a Tribal had begun hanging around him. Since the days of K'tae it wasn't unheard of for tribal-human pairings, but even when confronted several times with this attractive stranger - he'd not made the connection. He'd been seemingly oblivious of the possibility until K'thi had taken matters into her own paws about six months after they'd met.
Kasumi was born nine months after K'thi took the initiative on that hot summer night.
It was when Akane was six years old that two strangers had appeared and tried to look him up. They'd met away from the house rather than potentially alarm his daughters, and frankly explaining what his martial arts training had been like to his daughters was something he wasn't ready to do.
Or, at least, that had been the plan.
"I can't figure out who it would be, and I'd feel better if you went home right now and kept an eye on the girls," said Soun, walking quickly along the street.
"My sister Nyanko is quite capable of keeping an eye on them," said K'thi. "Why can't it be your old friend?"
"Because," said Soun, stopping when the bar was in sight. "Because Genma Saotome is dead. We were serving under a terrible Master, training night and day, and Genma came up with an idea to get the Master drunk and then blow him up in a cave."
"Seems a bit excessive," said K'thi, thinking a pulse-rifle or grenade would likely have worked better.
"No, no, no - we had to be sure!" Soun shuddered just thinking about the evil oompah-loompah. "Unfortunately he used too much explosive and he tripped."
"Couldn't he have survived somehow?" asked K'thi.
"No, I buried what was left of him," said Soun. "I found enough for -"
"SOUN! MY OLD FRIEND!"
Soun Tendo looked, screamed like a girly man, then fainted dead away.
"Ah, you must be... are those ears real?"
schinnng!
Genma grinned nervously and tried not to swallow. "...nice sword you've got there. Mind moving it away from my neck just a bit?"
Soun had taken awhile to get used to the idea, and he still wasn't sure about parts of it, but the more he talked to this guy (and the more sake he drank) - the more he was convinced this WAS Genma Saotome.
"So you want to reinstate some honor agreement - an arranged marriage to unite the families?" asked K'thi.
"Yesh, my son ish gonna be a grrrrrreat martial artist," said Genma, deciding to address his comments to the Mrs Tendo in the center of the other two. Strange that there'd only been one at the start of the drinking but now there were three identical twins or something here.
"I see," said K'thi. "What happens if he likes more than one of them?"
"He'll jusht choose one," said Genma sagely.
"What if more than one of them likes him?" asked K'thi.
"Hah?" asked Genma.
"Thash white," said Soun before his eyes rolled up in head and he collapsed onto the table.
K'thi picked up her saucer before the collapse and delicately lapped some of the cream up before addressing Genma again. "Let's change this line here. If more than one of my little girls chooses him, he's got to make her happy too. It wouldn't be fair for one of them to find a husband and neither of the other two do. He is manly enough for this, isn't he?"
Genma tried his best to focus through the haze. "You not related to Nodoka is you? No. I'd have noticed if she had a tail. I think."
K'thi quickly made a few addendums, a couple of quid pro quos, a couple of provisos in the document. "Can you press your hanko here?"
Three little girls twitched their three little tails in unison. "So your friend really came back from the dead to keep this pledge?"
"Yes, that's right," said Soun, hanging his head. "They'll return when Ranma is sixteen, and one of you will marry him to unite the two families."
"Or more, we are tribals, dear," said K'thi.
In the years following that talk, it came about that the otaku-ism struck and the Tendo Kittens had their own focus:
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(Posted Wed, 13 Apr 2005 06:21)
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