When Ranma started to waken, he became aware of being carried fireman-style by a panda, and that the panda was knocking on a door. ‘What’s Pops up to?’
Ranma was still blinking sleep from his eyes when he heard the door slide open. Screams of shock and the sound of running feet was followed by Genma running himself. ‘Oh man. Did Pops forget he looks like a giant animal at the moment?’
Ranma twisted up to yell over his, and Genma’s, shoulder. “Hey Pops, quit it! You’re scarin’ ‘em spitless.”
From there things only got worse: one of the daughters kept poking his chest while complaining he wasn’t a guy, to better: another daughter asking to be friends and inviting him to spar, to worse again: the new friend walking in on him in the bath, to uncomfortable: demonstrating the curse to a bunch of rude and somewhat confrontational strangers.
Ranma sighed. ‘Aren’t we old enough to run off and elope?’
Jubei, Jiyu’s nickname, sadly replied, ‘No, not even close.’
‘Then why in Hell is pops trying to finalize an arranged marriage now?! Couldn’t he have waited another, say, five years. I’d have ran away to join you by then.’
Ranma received no reply, other than waves of sadness, confusion, and regret.
Scalding hot water tore Ranma from his thoughts.”Ahh! Not so hot, Tendo-san.”
Soun didn’t even seem to have heard him. “Well, son, your problem isn’t all that bad.”
‘Not all that bad? Then you go take a dip in the Spring of Drowned Girl,’ Ranma thought vehemently, but kept silent out of politeness.
Soun gestured towards his eldest daughter. “This is Kasumi; she’s too old, plain, and boring. And this is Nabiki; who’s just mean-spirited at heart. And here is Akane; she’s sixteen, a martial artist, and perfect for you. Pick Akane, she’ll be your wife.”
Genma cut in with his advice. “She’s perfect, Ranma. A girl with thighs that thick and no chest! You know she must be desperate for a date. Not only does she not have her eldest sister’s curves, but she doesn’t even have her other sister’s fashion sense. Why, she has old spinster written all over her. And look at that angry scowl, it makes her look like a monkey from the zoo. Now there’s a wife for you.”
“It’s decided,” Soun cheered, “Ranma and Akane will be engaged.”
“Yay!” Genma cheered. “My idiot son with your monkey girl. At least she looks like the kinky type, unlike her boring sister or her homosexual sister.”
Ranma gulped at the way all three girls were glaring at the fathers. “Er, no thanks sir. I’m not looking to get married and I already have a girlfriend.”
Genma snorted. “Your left hand doesn’t count as a girlfriend.”
Soun broke out crying. “*Wah* Are you saying my little princess isn’t good enough for you?”
“Don’t worry Tendo, old buddy. Ranma doesn’t have any other girls in his life. I made sure of that. I had to scare off eight suitors, twelve martial arts groupies, and a twenty-seven year old pedophile. And the ones I couldn’t scare off ... I would suddenly leave town in the middle of the night. Boy, didn’t that make for an interesting and more fun training trip.”
Ranma glared at his father with lidded eyes. “You seem to be forgetting all the times you were leaving town to escape the law.”
Akane began shouting at her father. “What kind of perverted criminal did you engage me to?”
But her shouts were mixed in with her sisters. “Plain and boring? So I’m not good enough to arrange a wedding to?”
“Mean-spirited? I’ll show you mean-spirited!”
Ranma just took in all the crazy yelling and noticed no one was paying him any attention. ‘What a zoo, I’m out of here. Hey, Jubei, I’m returning to China for a cure. Yay!’ And with out a further thought, Ranma slipped out of the house.
‘Jubei?’ Ranma asked again when he heard no reply. With a mighty leap, he took to the roofs to hop across town.
‘Jiyu?!’ Ranma’s cry became more frantic. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. I was just brooding. Life’s unfair’
Ranma’s felt a swell of compassion. He knew his girlfriend was having it tough lately. ‘I was only joking about returning to China, you know.’
‘*sniffle* I know. It’s just too much all at once.’
‘Hang on, I’m coming for you.’
“*Oof*” Ranma wasn’t paying attention and got clotheslined by his father.
“Running out boy? Oh what did I ever do to deserve such a cowardly whelp?”
Ranma grumbled as he got up. “I ain’t marryin’ no girl I never met, ol’ man.”
“So? Stick around and you’ll get to know Akane better. She’s a great match for you, a real man-hating gorilla. She’ll keep you sharp and on your toes. And then she can pop out some grandbabies and my life will be complete.”
“I heard that, you smelly, old panda.” Ranma looked over the edge of the roof and saw the Tendo girl shaking her fist at them.
Ranma turned back to his father. “Why is she here? ... Why are you doing this anyways?”
“Mid-life crisis,” Soun said as he popped out from nowhere.
“ACK!” Ranma screamed, startled by the sudden appearance of Soun. “Mid-life crisis?”
Genma nodded. “We planned it long ago.”
“Planned what?”
Soun chimed in, “Our mid-life crisis.”
Ranma looked between the two. “What’s a mid-life crisis?”
Soun and Genma shared a look. “It means we want to recapture the glory days of our youth.”
Soun nodded. “So, to that end, we agreed to marry our children off so we could dump them while we travel the country, training and living it up like we did under the demonic bastard that was our master, may his corpse rot in pieces.”
“So you get to live with the girls and me and Soun can go enjoy life. Hey Soun, how about we go to China first? I’d like to get a cure for my curse?”
“But the panda-form could get us babes,” Soun whined.
“Not that curse. I was cursed to have explosive diarrhea.”
Soun chuckled. “That’s not a curse, old buddy. Didn’t you know not to drink from the rivers in China? All the small villages don’t have sewage treatment plants. They just dump it into the river. That’s why the Great Yellow River of China is yellow ... it’s full of urine. It’s called Mao Tse Tung’s Revenge”
“Bah, Tendo. That’s just an old-wives tale.”
Ranma shook his head in dismay. ‘They’re both idiots!’
He could tell Jubei still felt glum. ‘Hey, I’m going to get there as soon as I can and help you out with everything. It’s not fair the way you were thrust into some age-old vendetta between swordsmen and their politics.’
Ranma returned to arguing with the fathers. “So what? I have to marry some chick and be stuck in a loveless household while you two go live it up?”
“Yes,” Soun replied.
“That’s pretty much the idea,” Genma agreed.
“You’re both nuts. If it’s an adventure you want, just try keeping up.” With a powerful leap, Ranma was off running with the two old guys not far behind.
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(Posted Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:14)
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