Nabiki knew why Akane seemed to be raising the bar. The family had acquired an unusual pair of houseguests two days before. Genma and son had arrived as expected. She had known they were coming. Or at least, she knew Genma was coming – she did not know what manner of substitute for Ranma he’d acquired. But on Saturday she’d found out. It was Ryuu Kumon, who in her own universe had come after Genma for the Yama-Sen-Ken and Umi-Sen-Ken scrolls, because his father had killed himself with one of the techniques in the Yama.
In this universe, the Kumon boy had apparently been adopted by Genma at between six and seven years of age, a few days after his parents had been murdered in a robbery of their dojo. Genma had been passing through town, a month after losing Ranma, and a neighbor of the Kumon family had recognized Genma and taken him to Ryuu; and Ryuu had gone with Genma since. She knew all this because the same entity who’d put her in this universe had informed her of it only minutes before her father had called the family meeting, wherein he told his daughters of their soon-to-be houseguests.
As she predicted, neither Genma nor “Ranma” arrived in their natural forms. Genma was in panda form – she reasoned that he must be like the Genma of her original universe. “Ranma” was in girl form. But his girl form looked different from the Saotome boy she remembered. She was taller, at nearly 5’8”. Instead of being fire-engine red, it was as dark as pitch. Furthermore, she wore it loose, and it stretched to her waist. Instead of having bright blue eyes, her eyes were a stormy green-blue, tinged with grey. The figure was similarly “gifted”, but on the larger body, it didn’t seem quite so unusual.
With the advance knowledge and advance warning Nabiki had been given, she could act to prevent a mistake. So when her father had announced the engagement, she had volunteered herself. The result: she and “Ranma” were engaged. Akane had left the room to return to the dojo at this, and so she had not even been present when the Saotomes had arrived.
Thus, it went off much smoother. But the fact that the Saotomes were even in the house still irritated Akane greatly, especially as “Ranma” was predictably a much better martial artist, capable of moving around Akane’s attacks with only minimal effort. This had done nothing to improve her volatile younger sister’s mood, and Akane had been steaming since that afternoon.
Evidently, in this universe, her younger sister was more prone to carrying a grudge.
In any event, because “Ranma” was her fiancé and not Akane’s, he had been enrolled in her class, and was currently sitting in a desk near the back of the room. She had walked with him to school, showing him the way.
Nabiki watched as an unfamiliar young man walked into the courtyard through the gate. He had dark red hair, which was unusual, but nothing she hadn’t seen before. His clothes were strange – a white shirt, an oversized black and purple jacket (possibly leather), and pants in a military camouflage pattern of light blue, dark blue, white, and black.
Then she took a look at his face. Her eyes widened.
It was the face of the Ranma she remembered.
Thinking quickly, she realized this had to be the altered Ranma she’d been told she would eventually meet. If he was a student here...
For the first time in several years, Nabiki winced. Nothing good could possibly from this.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by nuclear death frog
(Posted Sun, 15 Feb 2004 06:56)
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.