Part 3: Ranma's Secret


"Great another stray," Nabiki said. Kasumi was about to come to Tarre's defense when Nabiki continued. "Though I guess this one won't be around as long as the ones she normally picks up."

Kasumi shut her mouth before anyone could notice that it had been open. She had almost forgotten about Tarre's tendency to adopt stray animals from time to time. She supposed she was just keyed up from finding out about this fiance business and then learning that Tarre was excluded from it.

"So who's the girl?" Akane asked as Tarre arrived with the first aid kit.

"She's a martial artist," Tarre said. "She was fighting a giant panda in the streets. It knocked her unconscious with a stop sign when she thought she'd beaten it."

"And how did you end up with her," Nabiki asked. Nabiki had a familiar look in her eyes, the one that spoke of unexpected expenses.

"Oh, there is no concern," Tarre said. "I put it back this time."


Several people were staring at the lamp post that had been rammed back into its former position. The shook their heads and hummed, watching the occasional spark of electricity jump out of the destroyed wires.

"It's a good thing that girl doesn't study martial arts," somebody said. "And that she's such a nice girl."

"If she had a temper," another agreed. "And/or training who knows what sort of damage she could do."

"Well, it's gotten better recently," somebody else noted. "Usually Akane handles the random assorted giant animals these days."

"Case in point," somebody noted.


"She got knocked out by a giant panda," Akane said in disbelief. "Must be a novice."

"Well, the panda was a martial artist, too," Tarre said resulting in a flinch from all there. "I think she was as good as Oneechan."

Tarre's ability to read a fighter was quite minimal, and she tended to underestimate people by a great deal if they were not family, or actively attacking her. So her pronouncement was met with some shock.

"No way," Akane said.

"Urgh," the redhead said. "Damn, Pops, you didn't have to hit so...ehh...hey where am I?"

"Oh, Konnichi wa," Tarre said. "This is the Tendo dojo, I brought you here." She leaned forward and sniffed at the girl for a moment. There was something familiar about her, she just couldn't place it.

"Uh, right," the redhead said sitting up and glancing at Tarre strangely. The grey-girl blinked, embarrassed and backed up a moment. "Did you happen to see a fat and lazy panda with me?"

"Oh, don't worry about him," Tarre said. "Animal control was called."

Ranma blinked for a moment as he considered that piece of information. She blinked quietly for a moment before bursting out in laughter.


"What do you mean the panda vanished?" the zookeeper demanded. "How could you lose such a valuable animal!?!"

"I'm sorry, sir," the workman said. "They were spraying down the pit with hot water and he suddenly just vanished."

"Find him quickly!!" the zookeeper demanded angrily.


"Are we missing something young lady?" Soun asked. The redhead's laughter suddenly died. Akane was fuming quietly still wondering about Tarre's comment earlier.

"I am not a young lady!" she shouted. "I'm a g..." She looked down at herself and frowned. "...Stupid curse."

"What was that about a curse?" Tarre asked, nervously.

"Nothing you're gonna have to worry about," the redhead said. "Look, I gotta go, my Pops has this idea about getting me engaged to somebody I ain't never met." Tarre looked confused.

"That sounds terrible," she said, more for the sake of supporting the girl than actually knowing what she was talking about.

"Oh my," Kasumi said, as she and Nabiki glanced toward Soun.

"Who does THAT in this day and age?" Nabiki asked pointedly.

"And I REALLY doubt he's told them what they're getting into either," the redhead said.

"Ahem," Soun coughed into his hand.

"So anyway," the redhead continued. "I think I better head on back to China before the baka panda finds some hot water an comes lookin' for me or something." Nabiki and Kasumi looked back to their definitely nervous fighter.

"Hey, Tarre said you're a martial artist," Akane said.

"Uh, yeah," the girl said. "Ranma Saotome of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts." Soun irked and glanced between his two older-seeming daughters.

"What?" Akane gasped confused. "I'm Akane Tendo of the TENDO School of Anything Goes Martial Arts!"

"Excuse me?" Ranma said. "As far as I know, Pops and I are the only practioners." Though something was tickling the back her mind.

"Well," Akane said. "Want to spar before you go? My sister said you were as good as me, and a good challenge would be nice to have around here."

"Sure," Ranma said, curious about seeing another Anything Goes fighter in action. "She said something about a dojo right?" He jerked a finger toward Tarre.

"Yeah," Akane said standing up. "I'll lead the way." In a moment they were leaving for the dojo.

"She hasn't figured it out," Nabiki said.

"That poor girl didn't either," Kasumi said.

"Ano," Tarre said. "Haven't figured what out?"

"Well, father?" Nabiki said, turning toward him. "Looks like our fiance is a girl." Soun fainted.

"Father!" Tarre gasped, rushing to her father's side.


"So what does your school specialize in?" Ranma asked.

"Mostly grappling, power, and weapons," Akane said. "You?"

"Aerial combat, speed, and unarmed," Ranma said. "Some staff and nunchaku work though. Jujutsu based?"

"Hai," Akane said, starting to sound supicious. "Locks, throws, pressure points. With a lot of borrowing to back it up. Mostly Karate, some Sumo, whatever else I ran across."

"Same here, mostly Aikido and others though," Ranma said, though the 'whatever I ran across' list was too large for her to list. "Huh, you'd almost think they were two halves of the same art or something."

"Weird, they even have the same name," Akane agreed. "So how are we gonna do this?"

"Bokkens?" Ranma asked after a moment.

"If you're going to concede to me like that," Akane said, moderately insulted. "Let's make it first touch."

"If you want to," Ranma said.

"Well, let's go," Akane said.

It wasn't deep into the first exchange before Akane felt her anger raising. This vagabond girl was just blocking her strikes and not attacking. In the past Akane would have let that anger raise and cloud her thinking. She had been working to control that anger over the last year, which was how she figured out the girl was watching her form and guaging her "tells" as Nabiki would have said.

"We'll see about that," Akane said under her breath. She pulled back and invited the other girl to attack her. "Well, are you going to attack or what?"

"Well, you asked for it," Ranma said. It's just first touch, don't have to worry about hitting her. Ranma came forward in a blur of speed that Akane almost couldn't defend against.

Damn, she's fast, Akane gasped as she twisted to avoid another strike. Good thing she doesn't know how to fight with weapons, this match would be over. Good thing I didn't insist on hand to hand.

That was her saving grace, Ranma was applying her unarmed and staff techniques to the bokken. As such she was telegraphing her sword moves all over the place. She couldn't read hardly anything else, but she KNEW where that sword was going almost a half-second before it was there. There were even several places that Akane saw an opening to work in one of the disarming moves she knew, but Ranma moved too fast for her to take advantage of them.

What the hell? Ranma thought. How the hell is she avoiding me?

One chance, Akane reasoned.

She broke away from her dodging and deflections for a moment to send in one hard block, designed to off-balance her opponent. Then she flashed out a kick to take advantage of that, hoping her opponent would be surprised by the change up.

The surprise was clearly apparent on Ranma's face, but she bent under the kick anyway. Akane's momentum carried her leg past Ranma's bent double body. She was already trying to move away from the vulnerable position she was going to find herself in, when she felt a light touch on the back of her head.

She turned around to see Ranma standing behind her, obviously having righted herself from bending over, and a single finger tapping the back of her head. Akane stared for a moment and then laughed.

"You're pretty good all around," she said. "Your win, but you need to work on the sword forms."

"Never had much use for them," Ranma said, shrugging. Internally she was determined to find someone to learn some sword forms from though.

"I'm just glad you're a girl," Akane said.

"Ehh?" Ranma said, confused.

"If you were a boy I'd start to think you were this fiance one of us supposed to marry or something," Akane said. Ranma and Akane blinked.

"Wait a minute," they said in unison.


"Dad," Akane said coming in from the dojo. "Is our fiancee, Ranma?!"

"He's fainted, Akane," Kasumi said.

"Oh great," Ranma said, placing her face in her hand. Of all the places to end up.

"Maybe it is Ranma-san's brother," Tarre suggested.

"Ehh?" Ranma said, confused again.

"It's either Ranma-san's brother or Ranma-san can become a boy," Tarre said. "I can smell a male that smells like you." Ranma turned quite pale at the second option, Nabiki and Kasumi noticed.

"You said something about a curse earlier?" Nabiki noted. She certainly believed in magic, her adoptive sister was the spitting image of something out of an American game that was called a dark elf and she aged almost not at all it seemed.

"Errr..." Ranma said again. Akane narrowed her eyes and turned to look at Ranma supiciously.

"And the other family not knowing what it was getting into," Kasumi added.

"Uhhhh..." Ranma said.

"TENDO!!" A voice cried out. Soon an unfamiliar man in a white gi was charging down the hallway, apparently having let himself in. "Tendo!! It's a disaster. Ranma's been taken by slavers just a few kilometers...away? Ranma, what are you doing here?"

At this point Genma kicked over a convenient bucket that had been in the hall way and very soon there was a panda standing in the hallway.

"Th...th...that's the beast!!!" Tarre shouted, instantly hiding behind Kasumi. Akane was a little to close to the monster for her comfort.

"So, Saotome," Nabiki asked. "Are you a girl, or a boy?" Akane was glaring at Ranma as Nabiki asked the question.

"I'm a guy," Ranma said. "Sorry about this." Akane twitched angrily.


"Well," Soun said after awaking and everything had been explained to him, with demonstrations. "The situation is not as bad as I thought."

"What?" Ranma asked, now male, not quite believing what he had just heard.

"These are my daughters," Soun said quickly. "Kasumi 19, Nabiki 17, and Akane 16. Choose one and she shall be your fiancee."

"What?!!" Ranma repeated more forcefully.

"I have a boyfriend, father," Kasumi reminded him as she took Tarre off to the side. She whispered to the girl. "It really isn't right that you're excluded from this you know. You should have as much chance as any of us."

"I am not a Tendo by blood Oneesama," Tarre noted. "If Father feels that I am not to be included, it is not my place to argue."

Kasumi looked over her older/younger sister a moment. It seemed to be the girl's highest goal in life to serve the will of other people, she had almost no concept of what she herself liked. All she did was maintain the house and feed them, without a life of her own.

Kasumi briefly imagined herself in the same situation and shuddered, she couldn't quite see it.

She would have had to give up on training and her school. She'd probably never have gone on that first date with Tofu. She'd probably be still living at home.

"You don't have any interest in him?" Kasumi asked.

"He smelled familiar..." Tarre noted hesitantly.

"Hey what about her?" Ranma asked, indicating Tarre. "Ain't she a Tendo?"

"But she's adopted," Soun said.

"What kind of perverted plans do you have for my sister?" Akane demanded.

"What's with you?" Ranma asked. "I ain't got no plans, it just don't seem fair to exclude her, you know?"

"Don't look at me, Daddy," Nabiki said. "I'm not going near this one."

"Well then," Soun said. "It's settled. You shall be Akane's fiancee." Kasumi heard Tarre's voice catch for a moment.

"One moment," Kasumi said. "The marriage is meant to unite the schools, correct?"

"That is true," Genma said. "It is a matter of honor."

"Then why not just have Ranma and Akane teach each other what they don't know?" Kasumi asked.

"That sounds fair," Ranma added, thinking of those sword forms.

"But," Soun sputtered.

"No they..." Genma started.

"Yeah," Akane agreed. "If we both learn what each other knows, then the completed school can grow twice as large."

"But a..." Soun started.

"Fine," Genma said, interrupting his friend. "We'll stay here, and Akane and Ranma will instruct each other in their arts."

"Glad that's settled," Akane said.

"Right," Ranma said, though he really had hoped he'd be going back to China sooner. Nabiki watched the two fathers suspiciously. Tarre felt a sense of relief for a moment, though she didn't know why.

"I shall do the shopping now," she said.

"Wait," Akane said. "Let me come with you, just in case something else happens."


"What are you thinking Saotome?" Tendo asked. "There needs to be a Tendo-Saotome marriage in order to end this curse."

"Relax, Tendo," Genma said. "They'll grow closer in the teaching. Certainly they'll be sweethearts by the end of the week."

"Let's just hope that my other daughter isn't the one that develops a longing for him," Tendo said.

"Who knows," Genma said. "Maybe the curse considers her a Tendo?"

"Better not to take chances," Soun said. "With each generation our families' lives get weirder and weirder, and marriage attempts always seem to fail. Look at what happened with my sister and your brother, and imagine what we're going to face with Ranma and Akane."

"Yes, Tendo," Genma said. "Our families have lived in interesting times."


Part 4   |   Anime@Fan.Fic