As he walked back into the house, Ranma was feeling rather good about himself.
Okay, maybe he had gone a little overboard, but after all the beatings Ryoga had given him during his stint with that stupid tattoo, the way he was always shooting his mouth off, the guy deserved it. Besides, it wasn’t like was anyone else around to test things out on. If anything, he was a little disappointed it was over so quickly, Ryoga hadn’t even stuck around long enough to get blasted by Ranma’s newfound magic powers.
“Ranma, are you done playing with your friend?” Kasumi asked as she walked up to him.
He looked over to the older woman and blinked. Now that Ranma thought about it, it was well past dinner time and he wasn’t feeling very hungry. Then again, Jane had said he’d need less food. A part of him wondered if that meant he’d have to cut back on meals to avoid gaining weight, and was a little depressed by the fact. Still, the part of him that remembered staving half to death in the Chinese wilderness until he was willing to eat anything eatable that came within arms reach was jumping for joy.
Pulling himself back to reality, Ranma looked over to Kasumi. “Uh, yeah, what is it Kasumi?”
“A letter came for you today,” she said before holding it out for him.
A challenge letter, he thought with a certain amount of glee before even looking at the thing. Someone else to beat up! He could test his magic out on Kuno, or Mousse, or Ryoga… wait, he’d probably be in the hospital for the next few days, or weeks; Ranma had hurt him a lot more than usual.
But, this did present an opportunity to test out his magic.
When he finally got done dreaming of barbecuing duck with fireballs, or blasting Kuno with lighting, Ranma looked down at the letter to see that it was different than the usual type that came to him. It was actually in an envelope a postman, of all things, had delivered. The emblem on the front told him who sent it. “Oh, it’s from the UFF.”
“Weren’t they the ones in charge of that tournament you went to last month to get the prize money you needed to go to China?” Kasumi asked.
Ranma rolled his eyes at that little memory. “Yeah, it wasn’t much of a tournament though,” he said with a little bit of annoyance. Most of the guys there barely knew martial arts, and all of Ranma’s victories had been by ring-out.
Curious to what was going on, Ranma opened the letter and started to read it aloud. “Dear Ranma Saotome… bla bla bla,” he said while skimming past most of the pleasantries. “Enclosed you will find this UFF season’s event schedule. You must attend at least five events this year, two of which must be ranking tournaments, or be dropped from the roster. If you have any questions, please contact your area’s senior fighter Ms. Ayane ‘The Mistress’ Anno, because we’re too damn cheap to pay for a help-line.”
Ranma looked away from the paper and frowned at nothing.
He had met Ms Anno twice in his lifetime. The second and most recent was during the tournament in Japan. All in all she was… well, she was just like Jane actually. But Ranma had to admit it was a far step up from the first time he met her. He had been ten years old and Genma had decided to take him to the local UFF event that they held in Japan every once a year. This wasn’t the backyard tournament Ranma had attended with only two or three famous faces to sign autographs and organize everything, it had all the glitz and glamour. Zero Kazuma had been the champion back then, and ‘The Mistress’ was known to all as ‘Ninja Kitty’.
Ranma shivered in as one of the most terrifying moments of his life was replayed. The terrifying stuffed little figures of cats. Ayane in that ninja getup that made her look like she had cat ears and whiskers. He hadn’t been able to sleep for a week out of fear she was coming to get him.
“Ranma?”
“GAH!”
Kasumi blinked as the boy jumped up to grab a hold of the overhead fan. “You zoned out and just started shaking. Are you all right?”
Ranma looked around as he spun around on the slowly rotating fan. “Uh… yeah.” Despite his position, Ranma picked up the letter and continued reading. “PS. We know that most of the events are in America, but that’s why we gave you all that prize money for travel, room and board. If you spent it already too bad bitch.”
After reading the last part again, he looked up and frowned again. “Who the hell writes these things?”
-Meanwhile in America-
“Dear lowly audience subjects,” Sabbo said to himself as he scribbled his pen across the paper. “From now on there will be a dress code for anyone attending UFF fights and sitting in the stands. All of the women with the DD or bigger coconuts are required to wear tight, two-piece swimsuits. This does not apply to all you peasants that have the aforementioned size, yet are packing plenty of junk in the trunk. Also…”
-Back in Japan-
“Wait a minute…” Ranma mumbled to himself. But, before his idea could fully form, he heard a cracking sound and looked up above him right as the fan's support gave way.
Kasumi looked up at the newest piece of destroyed property, and then to the hole in the ceiling. That fan was only two days old too. “I’ll go get the glue,” she said before turning around and starting to head towards the supply cabinet for repair materials.
“THAT’S IT!” Ranma shouted in excitement as he picked himself up and looked at the schedule. “That’s where I can find someone to test myself against!” The hell with fighting idiots who spent most of their time going to school or serving food in restaurants. The guys in the UFF made a living off this stuff, they trained and practiced almost every waking hour of every single day. This was where he should be looking for opponents! “I need to go to the next tournament,” he said before tearing oven the envelope and pulling out the schedule.
Kasumi stopped and looked back towards Ranma. “Well, Golden Week is coming up,” she mumbled. Not that Ranma ever needed an excuse to ditch class.
After skipping half of the schedule since he had come in a mid-season, Ranma found what he was looking for. “Orlando, Florida.” Wherever that was. According to the poster, they were holding a special event where the top of the line would be attending and could be challenged. “That settles it. I’M GOING TO AMERICA!”
Behind Ranma, Kasumi wondered why the hell he was striking a Captain Morgan pose with one of his feet up on the dinning table and holding out the unrolled poster when there was no one there to see it. It was times like this when she was glad martial arts were no longer part of her life. That stuff made you crazy.
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:06)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.