Integra was impressed with her son. At age five, Ranma seemed to have mastered the English language. Luckily, the language tutor Integra had hired also knew Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Russian. Integra and Walter made sure to school Ranma on the matters of the undead and the Hellsing Organization's mission to eradicate them.
In terms of mathematics, science, and history, the boy did well. Not excellently, but well. He seemed determined to get ahead in these areas as well.
In terms of social matters, Ranma got along with Sir Hugh Islands' daughter, Janice, and Admiral Sir Shelby Penwood's daughter, April, quite well. He also made friends with two of the Wild Geese members, Lt. Stuart Cox and Private Thomas Takada, both from America. Also, he got along with Lt. Cox's wife, Cathy, and son, Joseph.
In terms of fighting, he took to all of his training like a fish to water. He also seemed quite interested in old Bruce Lee movies and Jet Li films. In fact, any martial arts films caught his interest.
Ranma was quickly learning fencing and insisted on wearing training weights, which he increased regularly. Ranma's true talent was in weaponless combat, though he showed extreme talent with just about any weapon. Though he had only a thirty-two percent accuracy with the air-powered training rifle Private Takada brought him, his very first shot hit the target dead-center.
Yes. Integra was proud of Ranma. He was a prodigy who would make a great heir to the Hellsing estate.
She lit up a cigar as she watched Ranma playing in the rear courtyard with Seras, Joseph, Lt. Cox, the young Janice Islands, and the young April Penwood...
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Ranma could feel the pride that his mother found in him. A pride he never remembered feeling from Nodaka... but that was in the past. He could feel Integra's love for him, as well as the love of his Auntie Seras.
Ranma took his schooling seriously, but he was disappointed that language was the only subject in which he excelled (other than combat training and tactics). Still, he was going to make the most out of the second childhood his luck had given him. He considered it a blessing that he found that magic lamp in his previous life.
Speaking of such, Alucard and Seras both confronted him about his strange aura (which Alucard had detected) and his apparent genius at such a young age. He told them that he was a reincarnated being, as the host of Heaven felt bad for what they allowed to happen to him in his past life. Alucard figured that the strange quality of Ranma's aura must be some sort of divine intervention. After having that discussion, Ranma made them promise to keep it a secret until he was older, which they agreed to.
Ranma was brought out of his memories when a fist connected with his chest.
Much to Stuart's and Seras' amusement, Ranma and Joseph (who Ranma called "Joe") were play-sparring in the middle of the courtyard while Janice and April cheered them on. Janice was about six months older than Ranma, whereas April was a little over a year older than he. Joseph was nine years old, and very interested in becoming a member of Hellsing's troops when he grew up. Stuart and Ranma tried to encourage this, much to Cathy's dismay.
Ranma was holding his own against a boy not only larger but older than he, and Joe was having a fun time trying to knock Ranma down. Soon, the two boys got tired, and took a break.
"Hey! Good spar, pal!" said the older boy.
"You too, chap!" replied Ranma.
He then looked at the two girls, who were both beaming. Ranma knew that they both liked him, though April also seemed to like Joe as well. Ranma knew that their fathers each had the same ulterior motive - they each wanted to engage their daughter to Ranma. Ranma figured that the multiple-fiancée thing was a curse that would plague him no matter where he went, though the engagements were turned down by his mother. She believed that Ranma was too young for that kind of thing, and that he should choose his fiancée himself. Seras agreed in a rather threatening manner. Both Sir Islands and Admiral Sir Penwood stopped pressing the issue after that point.
Ranma's strength returned more quickly than Joe's did, so Ranma decided to show off. He decided to pull off one of his old techniques which Seras had secretly helped him train for.
"Hey guys! Check this out! MOKO TAKABISHA!"
Ranma fired a ball of energy the size of a golf ball at a training dummy on the far side of the courtyard.
KABOOM! The dummy exploded into a thousand pieces.
Stuart's and Joe's jaws dropped. April looked stunned.
"What the hell is that!?" asked Integra, from inside her office. She put her cigar out in the silver ashtray.
"That was so cool!" exclaimed Janice.
Seras was flabbergasted that Ranma decided to blow his secret already.
He's not giving himself away just yet, explained Alucard. He's trying to earn some leeway to train himself to be stronger than he was in his past life. What a manipulative little brat! He has my respect.
Seras was annoyed with Alucard at that point, but she didn't bother with a reply.
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Ranma managed to convince his mother to allow him to continue training and that nothing was wrong with him medically.
Seras was surprized that Integra agreed to allow such strange training exercises as hitting Ranma with boulders, attempting to pluck chestnuts out of an open fire, and dodging pebbles that were thrown at him. Integra apparently chalked it up as Ranma being an unorthodox genius. Seras knew better, but she wasn't allowed to say so, nor would she if she was. Soon, Ranma would be pulling all sorts of crazy stunts (crazier than the ones he had been pulling) as "training".
What surprized Seras the most was when she finally figured out where her various manga and anime had been disappearing to. Ranma had been practicing his stealth skills by stealing them from her room. She didn't catch him in the act, but she did find him watching the eleventh episode of "Big O". Soon, she and Ranma shared the hobby of watching anime. Come to find out, Thomas was also an anime fan, and all three of them watched all sorts of anime. And then Thomas introduced Ranma to his three favorite anime: "Fist of the North Star", "Record of the Lodoss War", and "Slayers".
With those anime (as well as many martial arts films) Ranma was able to train in his own Style of Anything Goes Martial Arts by pretending to imitate what he saw on the screen.
Alucard was the only one who was the wiser, as he had actually met the founder of Anything Goes Martial Arts at one time. Alucard was trying to figure out exactly who Ranma was in his past life, but it would take a while for him to discover the heir's past identity.
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Skip to age six...
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(Posted Tue, 07 Aug 2007 07:50)
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