"Um, Akane."
Akane jolted as she was about to walk into the furo room, and then she turned back to see Kanami standing nearby, a knowing look on the redhead's face. "What is it, Kanami-chan?"
Kanami pointed to a space to Akane's right. "Rather notice something?"
Akane blinked, and then she turned around to see the OCCUPIED sign hanging on the door handle. Blinking several more times as she registered that, she then felt her cheeks redden as she then heard a relaxed sigh from inside the washing area. A sigh that could only have come from one pair of lungs. "Ranma's in there."
"Right," Kanami drawled. "Now, I know that despite that 'bash all perverts' attitude you have, you are a pretty normal girl when it comes to . . .! Ah, shall we say, understanding the Birds and the Bees?!" On seeing Akane's cheeks redden even more, Kanami then smirked. "Akane, will you stop finally? Besides, if you try to pull your usual stunts on Ranma, you'll probably end up wrecking your arms because his body now has the practical density of depleted uranium mixed with tungsten. You want that?"
Akane jolted, and then she shook her head. "No way!"
"Smart girl," Kanami advised as she turned to head back to the guest bedroom. "And believe it or not, dearest fiancée of ours, Ranma and I do want your pretty, perfect body in one piece so we can worship it as it truly deserves!"
"ACK!"
"Kanami-chan!" Kasumi gasped in shocked disbelief; she had heard everything the reborn version of Ranma's true mother had just said. "That's not nice!"
"Oh, yes, Kasumi-chan!" Kanami then moaned as she made a "woe is me" gesture, and then she fluttered her pretty eyes at the eldest Tendou daughter. "We certainly must not forget you and Nabiki-chan! Oh, I can just imagine the orgies we'll be having very soon!" She then called out, "Right, brother dearest?!"
"Whatever turns your crank, sis!" Ranma called back.
"URK!" Akane gargled out.
"Oh, my!" Kasumi gasped, her hand flying up to the mouth in the usual manner.
Kanami laughed as she headed off to her own room.
After breakfast . . .
"I have to admit this, Ranma, but it's just plain weird seeing you dressed in a school uniform," Nabiki admitted.
"It feels weird, too," Ranma admitted as he tugged on the tight collar. "Makes me look like a freakin' clone, too! How do you feel about it, sis?"
"Ditto," Kanami, she dressed in a Fuurinkan High School girl's jumper and blouse (it was once Kasumi's, hastily modified to fit its new owner's dimensions), said. The Saotome siblings and the younger Tendou daughters were walking in line of review towards school, neither Ranma or Kanami electing to practice the "balance training" on nearby fences that the old Ranma had always done when it came to going to school. "How you norms can stand all this, I'll never start to understand."
"Easy on that insult, Kanami," Nabiki warned. "It's going to be interesting enough trying to explain how you got split off from your brother here without dropping all the wonderful hints about your true origins along the way."
"At least you'll make a killing on all the information requests," Kanami noted.
"Hai, that's true," Nabiki noted with a grin. "Thanks for reminding me of that."
Seeing that smile, Kanami smirked, and then she leaned over to Ranma. "Don't you think her smile's as sexy as the dickens, bro?"
"I can certainly assert that, sis," Ranma replied.
Nabiki jolted. "GLK!"
"Watch it, Onee-chan! They're picking on you now," Akane warned.
"And what's the matter with our complimenting your sister?" Kanami asked. "Much less you for that matter, Akane? You know how much we care for you."
Nabiki and Akane stared wide-eyed at the siblings. They then exchanged a look, and then the former sighed. "You have to excuse us both," she then said. "We're just not used to hearing any sort of compliments of that nature escape you. In either form, if you can understand our meaning. I mean . . . " She paused, surprised that she was now at something of a loss for words, and then she continued, "Getting used to what you two really are is difficult enough for us. But the physical change is easy for us to accept. It's the psychological change that's really knocking us off our feet."
"Are you saying we shouldn't want to compliment you?" Kanami asked.
"Well, no! NO!" Nabiki sputtered out, and then she moaned. "Oh, man! This is just not going to be . . . "
"NIHAO, AIREN!"
Everyone jolted on hearing that charming hail, and then they turned to see Shampoo come slamming down on the nearby fence with her so-called "bicycle of death," the morning's delivery order from the Nekohanten on a cargo rack behind the seat. As the jolt from the surprisingly hard impact warped through the bicycle, the hapless Nyu-che-zuu warrior-maiden was knocked right off. She fell in the direction away from the Saotomes and the Tendous, the poor girl soon finding herself in a nearby creek. As her scream turned into cat yowls as her curse was triggered, Kanami shook her head. "She was aiming blind for you in the past while, Ranma," she noted as the quartet headed off to school. You just got too predicable to her."
"I'll avoid that in the future," Ranma mused.
In the creek, the sopping Neko-Shampoo tried to paddle her way ashore. Where was Airen?! she mentally wondered as she tried desperately not to get swamped by water from a nearby storm drain. This one was sure she heard him . . .
"OH, YE GODS! LOOK!"
Gasps filled the front yard of Fuurinkan High School as people's eyes snapped around to lock in the four newcomers walk onto the property. Eyes bugged out of their skulls. Jaws hit the ground. Heads shook in obvious disbelief. And drool began to drip away from the lips of many, both guys and girls, on seeing a separated male and female Saotome Ranma, standing side-by-side, in uniforms to boot!
Ranma sighed as he pulled out a bullhorn, handing it to Nabiki. "Have fun."
"Thank you, Ranma-kun," Nabiki replied before she brought the horn to her lips. "GOOD MORNING, FUURINKAN! AS YOU'LL ALL NOTICE, SAOTOME RANMA-KUN HAS BEEN FULLY AND FINALLY CURED OF HIS JUSENKYOU CURSE! AS A SIDE EFFECT OF THE CURSE BEING TAKEN AWAY, HE HAS A SISTER, A PERSON WHO IS A WOMAN IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE! THIS HERE IS SAOTOME KANAMI-CHAN!" A wave to the Saotome in question, and then she carried on, "BY THE WAY, SHE HATES BEING CALLED 'RANKO!' HERE'S A FREEBIE FROM ME: IF ANY OF YOU ARE STUPID ENOUGH TO TRY TO CALL HER THAT, SHE WILL PERSONALLY REMOVE YOUR TEETH FROM YOUR MOUTH WITHOUT BENEFIT OF ANAESTHETIC OR CLAMPS! AND HERE'S ANOTHER FREEBIE FROM ME: IF YOU TRY TO HARASS RANMA-KUN ABOUT LOSING HIS CURSE, MUCH LESS TRY TO DOUSE HIM WITH WATER TO SEE IF HE MIGHT STILL HAVE IT, YOU'LL BE SWIMMING IN THE SCHOOL POOL AFTER HE TOSSES YOU THERE!" She then pointed over to a space to the north of the front gate, by the bust of Principal Kunou. "ANYONE WANTS THE STORY, I'M STARTING NOW AT FIVE THOUSAND YEN! THE LINE UP'S OVER HERE!"
A stampede nearly knocked the Saotomes and Akane down as people rushed over to line up in front of Nabiki, bills and coins out as they moved to get the skinny. As Akane moved on ahead to get into class -- for once, being right on time -- the Saotomes watched the brouhaha concentrating around Nabiki. "They sure are hungry for gossip, aren't they?" Kanami wondered as she whispered to her brother.
"Boring lives," Ranma muttered under his breath. "I hope the Doc's idea about livening things up around this place takes effect soon . . . "
"HOLD!"
The Saotomes then moaned. "Forgot something," Kanami muttered as they turned to look at the noble form in hakama storming towards them from the front doors.
And sure enough, it was the Blue Thunder of Fuurinkan High School, Kunou Tatewaki himself. "I KNEW IT!" he bellowed out as he took his stance in front of the Saotome siblings. "I KNEW ALL THOSE PERVERSE LIES I'VE HEARD ABOUT THE FOUL MAGUS SAOTOME AND THE BEAUTEOUS PIG-TAILED ONE BEING ONE AND THE SAME WERE FALSE! I KNEW IT!" He then crouched himself as he prepared to attack. "Now, Saotome, you fiend! Release the grip you have on the Pig-Tailed Girl this instant or face the wrath of . . . "
"NINOMIYA-SENSEI!" Kanami screamed out. "KUNOU-SEMPAI'S BEING A DELINQUENT AGAIN!"
Kunou froze. "Wha . . .?!"
"HAPPOU-GOJUU-EN-SATSU!"
The kendou-ka then shrieked out as a bolt of energy slammed into him, sapping out his ki in a flash as Ninomiya Hinako instantly absorbed it. After the shape-changing ki-vampire teacher assumed her full adult form, she then walked over the stunned Kunou to gaze appreciatively at Ranma and Kanami. "Oh, my!" she breathed out, she nodding in approval. "Proper uniforms for a change! And you're actually on time for classes! I definitely look forward to this from you, Ranma-kun." She then winked at Kanami. "And Kasumi-san called ahead and told me the wonderful news, Kanami-chan. She also passed on your mother's hopes that you'll get a boyfriend as soon as possible, though I hope it won't get as crazy as it does around your brother!"
Kanami sighed. "Ranma?"
"Yeah, sis?"
"What's the punishment for matricide?"
"After being effectively abandoned for ten years, then put under the threat of death because our father was a little too over-dramatic in his foolish youth?" Ranma mused, and then he shrugged. "I think you'd be allowed to get away with it, Kanami."
"Good!"
"I trust you all took notice of how fast Kanami-chan put Kunou-chan down," Nabiki said to the crowd around her, they turning around to stare wide-eyed at her. "Keep it in mind in the future if any of you want to pull funny stuff on her. Her bullshit tolerance is absolute zero! Got me, folks?!" she asked with a wink.
Dumbfounded nods responded.
After the morning furor, classes began. As each of the teachers got used to the bright new face in Class 2-D, the students began to realize that the change concerning Ranma had produced far more than a beautiful sister. To the surprise of his peers, Ranma wasn't spending most of his time in class sleeping. While he clearly was still struggling with a lot of the course material -- easily explained due to his gross lack of proper scholastic education -- he was trying now. That, in the eyes of the Fuurinkan High staff, was the more important thing.
Kanami was an even greater delight. As far as everyone knew, she was a being born from the synthesis of the spirit of the girl who drowned in Nyanniichuan 1500 years ago brought together with the more refined elements of Ranma's personality, a part of him that couldn't have developed well while he was on his training trip. She was polite to those who were polite to her, barely tolerant of those who seemed more willing to answer to their hormones than their brains, and seemed genuinely curious about her peers' many interests and beliefs.
"You just got your friend back as well as kept your fiancé," Tokoro Yuka mused at morning recess to Akane as they watched Kanami chat away with some of the other girls.
"Got that right," Akane replied.
"But what about Ranma-kun's other fiancées?" Asano Sayuri wondered. "Ukyou-san isn't here today, but she'll be here tomorrow. And what about Shampoo, too? Not to mention Kunou-sempai's crazy sister Kodachi? How's this going to affect that?"
"Believe it or not, their parents and Father are dealing with that right now," Akane replied as we then switch scenes to . . .
(Posted Mon, 02 Oct 2006 05:31)
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