Dear Mum,
I’m really really sorry I wasn’t home to see you over the weekend. Me and Akane went off on a ‘training trip’ – I guess Kasumi told you. Actually, I wanted to show her about the shapechanging, so I spent Saturday night and most of Sunday as a dog. Akane is pretty cool about it, I think it was right to tell her. It’s nice having somone who knows. I want to get to know Yuka and Sayuri and Akane’s sisters better before I show anone else.
I think Pops was doing somthing about you visiting. Kasumi telled me he didn’t come back after some errand Saturday, and he still isnt back now. He was really keen on the me and Akane going away for the weekend after I suggested it – like he wanted me out of the house and jumped at the idea.
The trip was a bit of a disaster otherwise. Somone took my tent out of my pack before we set out – I guess it was Pops trying to push the engagement thing again. Akane’s tent was really old, and it tore when we were putting it up. Then it rained at night. We tried to put my poncho over the rip, but we had hardly got back inside when the tent fell down. We ended up sheltering under a low bush with the tent canvas spred over it. Mr Tendo is weeping over the tent now because it was his wife’s or somthing. Kasumi says theres another tent in the shed, but she just got out the one on top – kami knos what state its in.
In my last letter I said I had a challenge on last Sunday with the school idiot, Kuno. Well, I went, and he wanted to give me a bunch of roses and tell me he loved me. I had dragged Pops along again to referree, and Akane nad her father came along too, so he was making this really icky ‘romantic gesture’ in front of the other girl he’s obsessing over – cause hes still going after Akane, too. Hes got enough love for two women, you see.
Pops went called him a pervert, and they had a fight – Pops kept taking his bokken away, but he had a ninja in the bushes throwing him new ones whenever he called for them. Pops tricked the ninja into throwing an extra bokken, and then when Kuno was distracted by it nocked him out by kicking the end of one of the others across the field into his head.
When we got to schol on monday, kuno tryed to make it so he won because Pops left the field. Hes been talking about the ‘Sourcerer Saotome’ as well as complaining about Akane’s fiancé ever sinse.
“You still awake, Ranma?”
Ranma looked up at the middle Tendo sister, leaning against the open door tot eh guest room.
“Akane crashed as soon as she got into her bedroom – that must have been some training trip,” continued Nabiki. Ranma nodded noncommittally. “You are going to tell me all about it, sometime soon.”
“I guess. In return for you telling me all about your day with my mother,” returned Ranma. “We’ll haveta explain how come the tent’s wrecked, anyway…”
Nabiki nodded with a wry twist of the lips. “Daddy is still weeping over it, you know.” She sighed, and stepped back into the hallway. “I’m for bed. I suggest you do the same if you want to be human for school tomorrow.”
“I… guess,” replied Ranma slowly. “I’ll just finish writing this. Good night, Nabiki.”
“‘Night, Ranma.”
Love you
Your daughter
Ranma
Ranma patted the slim envelope through the slot and jogged to catch up with her friends, asking, “Do you really think Mum would still want to see me? Since I missed her this time?”
“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” said Nabiki. “She seemed quite upset about missing you.”
“Well, yeah. That’s what I’m thinking,” said Ranma. “I mean, that’s insulting, not being there for someone who said they were coming…”
“Kasumi told her you never got her letter, Ranma,” said Akane. “She’ll understand – don’t worry about it!” Turning to her sister, she undermined her statement by adding, “She did tell her, didn’t she?”
“Yes, she did. And Auntie Nodoka seemed to think of your father having purloined the letter all by herself, as well,” replied Nabiki. “I expect to see her next weekend, since you said you’d be home.”
“Bets?” asked Ranma despondently.
“Not on a sure thing,” returned Nabiki cheerfully. Ranma huffed, partially reassured.
“Do you think Kasumi will be able to fix the stove in time for dinner?” asked Akane, attempting to divert their guest from the subject she had been worrying over ever since learning that her mother had visited in her absence.
“That’s a definite maybe,” sighed Nabiki. “It depends on whether Hirozaki-san is available to fix it today. I can’t believe Daddy managed to short-circuit the stove cooking pot noodles.”
“Guess Akane learned to cook from your father?” suggested Ranma.
Akane glared at her. “I suppose your father is a master chef.”
“Oh, not hardly. He’s tolerable as a camp cook, but…”
“But what? The world wants to know,” smirked Nabiki.
“It’s just – well, you supplement what you’ve got with what you can gather from the roadside, you know?” said Ranma slowly. Akane, having been introduced to the notion of faraging over the weekend, nodded. “So he knows you can add a bit of dandelion an’ nettles to get a bit of extra flavour. What he never seems to have learned is that when you’ve got more dandelion and nettles than you’ve got rice, you’ve made sorta lumpy tea ‘stead of a decent rice soup.”
Nabiki grinned. “So he doesn’t go about destroying the cookwear on a regular basis, then?”
Ranma shook her head. “Nah. Costs too much to replace it, and ya can’t find camp cooking gear around ta steal so much.” Both Tendo girls gave her a sidelong look at the casual mention of stealing equipment. “But I’ve been starved more often than I’ve got food poisoning.” She looked ahead. “Huh. Looks like the Horde are still disagreein’ about how ta approach us, Akane.”
Akane looked ahead at the medium-sized riot brewing in the schoolyard. On Thursday of the previous week, a third faction had emerged, and now whilst the majority of the crowd within the walls battled all comers to prove themselves satisfactory to their intended, and pockets of Kunoesque thinkers defended themselves until they could enter combat with Akane herself (notably, these holdouts were banding together for mutual defence against the first faction, even the Kendo Club accepting proponents of other arts into their group at least until she came into sight), a small but growing number of individuals battled only to defend the bribes they intended to present to the youngest Tendo as inducement to go out with them. As the three watched, one of these warriors for lust and just-us cringed away from a rampaging baseball player, shielding his head with a large circular object which proved, when struck with a baseball bat, to be a box of chocolates. A bouquet vaguely reminiscent of a small tree smothered in assorted blossoms already lay broken in the gateway.
“They’re never going to get it, are they?” remarked Akane wearily. She stretched her arms and picked up her pace to a gentle jog. Ranma jogged along in her wake, quietly smiling at the fourth faction produced by the evolving morning battles – the mass of boys, and some girls, who elected not to enter the school until Akane had cleared the path, thereby avoiding being beaten to a pulp by one or other of those actively fighting for her hand on the off-chance that they might also be competing.
Nabiki, strolling behind them, noted the reaction to her smile, and concluded that the redhead was gaining a small following herself. Calmly, she put that from her mind for the moment as she lifted the miniature camcorder to her eye to record the coming fracas.
Genma eyed the bento the labourer had set down in a quiet corner before setting about his work. It smelled promising, and he would almost certainly take advantage of it given a chance, but far more important was the thermos set on top of it. All he needed was the patience to wait for the labourer to move away.
Kosin Tetsuro liked his job. A general handyman like himself didn’t often get anything special as a place of work, but his present employer was the exception and he fully intended to remain here for the rest of his working life. Right now, though, he was wondering where the zoo had gotten a new panda from, and why it was watching his lunch.
The heirs of the Musabetsu Kakuto surveyed the debris littering the schoolyard.
The footing had been uncertain thanks to a dropped multipack of Coca-cola – in glass bottles, now shattered in all directions – and assorted soft-centred chocolates. Akane had barely avoided one strike dealt by an opportunist baseball player, who had thought to use the cover offered by a boy propositioning her with a monumental bunch of lilies; fortunately, Akane seemed to regard flowers as offensive weapons, and had wholly unintentionally pushed the boy with the bouquet into the path of the baseball bat. A party representing the field athletics team had attempted to prevent Ranma from interfering in the courtship of her friend, and had learned (hopefully) why the sports of heading the shot and catching the javelin had never caught on. She had briefly been distracted when Akane’s application of judo had resulted in a bokken being thrown across the width of the schoolyard, but her dart after the flying stick had been suppressed as soon as she realised what she was doing.
All in all, it had been a satisfactory suppression of the hormonal representatives of the other gender.
“Hmm,” remarked Akane, settling the strap of her satchel comfortably on her shoulder. “Something’s missing.”
“No Kuno.”
“That would be it.”
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(Posted Tue, 16 Oct 2007 23:45)
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