Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and all of its characters are owned by Rumiko Takahashi and Viz video. I don’t even own stock.

Chapter One

By Michael Fetter

"I still say it ain’t fair, pops," Ranma groused as she jumped over rooftops in the downtown area of Nerima. It was an amazing feat only made more impressive by the redhead’s small stature and large pack, which she held on her shoulders.

Her ‘pops’, who seemed to be a large panda with a similar back pack, followed the girl closely, waving a sign ‘It’s a matter of honor boy!’.

Pedestrians on the streets below gawked at the sight of the two strangers. The redhead descended to the streets and dropped her pack to the ground and faced the panda. It was still raining out and her shirt had become plastered to her ample chest. Some of the men in the area began to have nosebleeds.

"Choosing my fiancée for me?! It stinks if you ask me!" Ranma was the heir to the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts. Her father, one of the school’s few trainers, had been dragging her around Japan and China for the past ten years to train her as the best. She was showing her skill now as she fought with the panda bear in close, unarmed combat.

‘Take it like a man,’ the panda waved another sign before using it to take a swipe at his ‘son’.

Ranma snorted and caught the panda by the arm and threw him over her shoulder and onto the street. "Forget it, old man. I’m going back to China for a cure. Suck on that, pops!"

The crowd was silent as they watched her flip her red pigtail over her shoulder and bend over to pick up her backpack. They were still silent as they watched the panda get up and yank a street sign from the sidewalk. The redhead fell over unconscious as she was swatted on the back of the head.

Genma grabbed the backpack in one hand and threw his ‘son’ over his shoulder. He noticed the crowd and roared as a panda could and watched them scatter. Soon, he thought, I will be living comfortably and without worry once Ranma meets his fiancée.

~

It took ten minutes to find the address Genma had scrawled on a piece of paper. It was a strange stationary with coconuts bordering the paper. He looked up at the home and smiled in satisfaction. This was going to be their new home.

Ranma began to rouse as they reached the front door. Genma could hear a small argument happening inside. It sounded like a man and his children.

"What hit me?" Ranma woozily rubbed her head as she woke up, draped over her father’s panda shoulder. The rain had stopped finally and she could see the yard of someone’s home glistening in the evening. It was filled with shadows from trees and a perimeter wall. A large fountain stood near the home on the other side of the driveway. "Where the heck am I?"

Genma growled something and knocked on the door.

Facts started to fill Ranma’s head and she screamed in outrage, pounding her fists on her father’s back. "Dammit, old man! Let me go!"

‘Yeah, right,’ her father responded.

The door opened suddenly and a man with a palm tree growing out of his head stood there, beaming broadly, "Saotome! You make it here!"

A tall girl with a ponytail looked over the man’s shoulder. She registered the sight of a large panda in their doorway a moment before her father did. "Father, you might have delayed yourself on vacation a bit too long. The sun has obviously affected your mind."

The man blinked. "Who are you?"

Genma-panda growfed and shoved his way past the two people and entered the living room where a young kendoist was sitting silently and drinking his tea. The boy looked up at the panda, "Ah, it makes sense now for who would have the deluded mind to propose relations with my twisted sister. I hope you have a happy life with her, panda."

Genma-panda growfed again and dropped Ranma onto the floor in front of the Kuno family.

The Kuno patriarch leaned over and studied her face. He smiled again and pulled out a pair of shears, "Keiki’s needa cut like a bowl. I’ll be willin ta assit!"

"Wha?!" Ranma leaned back to protect her hair from being shaved off and slammed the man’s chin with a quick front kick. He lost his grip on the shears and fell flat on his face.

The girl stepped over (well, on) her father. "A fair kick, peasant, for that I am grateful." She grabbed Ranma by the chin and turned the girl’s face one way and then the next. "What business do you have here in the house of Kuno?"

"Sister," the young kendoist was on his feet, bokken tucked into his hakima, and standing dramatically by the fireplace, now lit and casting a shadow that made the boy look imposing. "Is it not better that we introduce ourselves?"

Ranma and Genma blinked.

The boy strode forward and grabbed Ranma’s hand. "I, fair beauty, am the rising champion in the Kendo world, Shooting Star of Furinkan High, Tatewaki Kuno, age seventeen!" Lightning crashed outside and Ranma shivered.

"Brother?" the young girl sounded annoyed.

"Ah, yes," Kuno continued, "my sister, Kodachi, a demonic spawn to which I unfortunately relate."

Tatewaki fell a moment later as his sister handed him a bundle of black roses. "We must work on that, brother dear," Kodachi scoffed.

By this time Ranma and Genma were both beginning to sweat. Ranma backed up into her father and poked him with an elbow. "What sort of nut family have you engaged me to, pops?"

~

"And this is the dojo, miss," Sasuke opened the door to an underground training facility. He was the Kuno family’s main servant, part of a proud family tradition that went back for generations. After watching the first meeting of the Saotomes and Kunos, he had taken pity on the girl and chose to show her around the estate, often pointing out the various traps laid out in the mansion.

Ranma walked in after the short ninja. She’d been wondering what to do while Kuno-san was out cold, Tatewaki was paralyzed by his sister, and Kodachi rushed off to her chemistry lab. Sasuke had appeared out of the shadows and placed both Kuno men on mats to wait out their ‘problems’. She had followed him through the gardens, greenhouse, kitchen, and baths. Only this last part really caught her interest. She’d been in dojos before, but not ones underground or so big and well equipped. "Wow, this is great."

Sasuke nodded, "Master Tatewaki and Mistress Kodachi often train here in their martial art styles."

"Oh yeah?" Ranma ventured further into the room, picking up a hoop with a razor edge. She quirked an eyebrow, "What sort of martial arts do they train in?"

"I fight on!" Tatewaki strode into the dojo and straight up to Ranma, grabbing her around the waist and holding her tightly. "My foul sister dost think she can separate us, but our love is stronger than her poisons!"

Ranma blanched, "Hands off, pervert!"

Tatewaki skidded across the ground a little ways. He shook off the punch and pulled out his bokken, "Ah such feminine grace! You are still pure and maidenly and are caught off-guard by my magnificence! Such fierceness must be thine test! Fear not, my love, for I shall honor this pact of your family’s and defeat you in combat to prove our love is more than family honor!"

"Oh, happy days!" Sasuke cheered on the sidelines, "Master Tatewaki has fallen in love . . again!"

"Hey wait a minute!" Ranma flipped over Tatewaki’s slashes of his bokken and distanced herself from the kendoist. "You’ve got it all wrong! I ain’t gonna marry you!"

"My sword shall cut a path to our love, my pigtailed goddess!" Tatewaki proclaimed with a jab, which Ranma avoided by ducking and coming in closer.

"Would you knock it off," Ranma yelled in his face, Tatewaki’s arms still extended as she was fast enough to pass through his guard.

"So fast," he muttered, "Such spirit! If you win, I shall allow thee to date me!"

This wasn’t what Ranma wanted to hear. She jumped high into the air to avoid another series of attacks and then came down hard with a sidekick, "Who said anything about datin ya?!"

Sasuke watched the fight come to a close and clapped. "You have great skill, miss. My Master tells me he has never been defeated before." He bowed to her and waved his hand in the direction of the door. "I’m sure after your sparring match you would like a bath. Allow me to show you the way."

Ranma breathed deeply and looked away from the boy she was standing over. His face had met the floor first with the helpful guidance of her foot. Now he seemed to be unconscious for the second time that day. Sasuke didn’t seem to mind so she shrugged it off and followed the servant out the door.

~

There was obviously something wrong with the family, Ranma thought. He sat wading in the large bath of hot water to give himself time before heading off to deal with the engagement his father had set him up with.

His male body was of great comfort to Ranma after the many weeks of almost constant rain or water accidents. After the curse in Jusenkyou, avoiding water had become impossible and outrageous in their frequency.

This is who he was. Ranma had been having nightmares of losing his true form since China. He would miss the extra foot in height, the comfortable balance, and the all-important male appendage. There was nothing terrible with the girl body, his curse, except that it was weaker, smaller, and had a pair of breasts that made it impossible to even pose as a boy in the body.

With the hot water, Ranma-chan’s red hair had bled away to the dark mop Ranma-kun kept tied in a pigtail. Their faces were very similar, so his father said, but the only thing that truly remained constant were the blue eyes. ‘The eyes were the window to the soul’ was the proverb and it seemed the cursed pools of Jusenkyou knew it as well.

Ranma wanted to think on the Kunos, but he didn’t have the words to describe them. They were insane, nuts, crackers, out of their minds, but even this seemed only like a shadow to the depths of their stupidity.

"I wonder what will happen when they learn about my little secret?" Ranma smiled and started stepping out of the furo, "At least the moron won’t try to hug me when he know the truth."

A chilling laugh echoed in the hallway outside of the furo before the door opened.

Ranma froze in place, eyes wide in shock at the sight of Kodachi without a stitch of clothes. Not that her leotard from before had hid anything, but the sight of flesh . .

From the doorway, a towel thrown casually over her shoulder, Kodachi stopped to stare at the boy before her. He was handsome, lean and muscular like an athlete, pretty blue eyes, and . . "Oh my."

Blushing as red is the hair of his girl half, Ranma began to sputter for words as he groped around for a towel, his eyes refusing to pull themselves away from Kodachi. She was a nut, but she was pretty nut. "Uh . . I, uh . ."

"Now this is more of what I had in mind for a fiance," she grinned, showing off her white teeth and flung the towel away from her. "We should become acquainted."

"!!!"

~

"This is strange," Tatewaki thought as he found his father kneeling at a table beside a man in a dirty gi. "Sasuke," he called down the hall where the servant was likely hiding in the shadows, "who is that man with my father?"

"I was not certain myself, Master Tatewaki," Sasuke responded once appearing from behind a curtain. "He appears to be a friend of your fathers."

"This is a day of surprises," said Tatewaki.

Feet began pounding down the hallway drawing the attention of Tatewaki and Sasuke. The paintings rattled slightly and a low din began to build. Tatewaki looked to Sasuke, who quickly hid himself in preparation for anything. A figure dashed into the hall, naked body dripping with water, a pair of pants only half way on one of his legs. "AAAA!"

Ranma tripped over his pants and squeaked to a stop on the floor. There were a few nicks and cuts on his body from the mansion’s traps, which he had barely avoided.

Tatewaki raised an eyebrow and then looked up to find his sister in her leotard, bounding through the hallways. She had her ribbon snapping around the area. "Ah," he nodded and started walking away, "that makes sense."

~

"We startin over," Kuno-san announced as soon as he had everyone settled back down in the receiving room. On one side of the table sat his children, once again regally displayed and with more expectation for this engagement than before. "Dis here be my kahuna man," he gestured to Genma by his side.

Genma bowed in his seat, "Genma Saotome, and this is my son," he continued gesturing to the male Ranma.

The pigtailed boy bowed in his seat as well, though he did not take his wary eyes off either of the Kuno siblings. "Ranma Saotome."

Unable to sit still any longer, Kodachi pulled out her ribbon and wrapped it about Ranma’s neck and dragged him over into her embrace. "Ohohohoho! What a lovely fiance! I take back the earlier remark on your intelligence, father dear."

"Remark?"

"If you are to be betrothed with my sister than I would wish you good luck and welcome to the family," Tatewaki inclined his head to the boy stuffed in his sister’s bosom. Internally he shivered and prayed the boy received a swift and merciful death soon. A smile returning to his face, he went back to regard the Saotome patriarch. "What of the pig-tailed girl? Shall she be my bride?"

"Bride?" Genma blinked and looked to his son, "Oh yes. About that."

Tatewaki had already tuned the man out as Genma began to explain the curses he and his son had from China, and was facing off dramatically with his fist clenched, "Such sweet bliss it shall be. We shall dance into the night and then further as our bodies inspire us!"

Kodachi snuggled the resisting boy closer with delight, "Ohohohoho! That does sound like fun! Don’t you think, Ranma-sama?"

"Uh," Ranma was busy looking for a way to extricate himself from this position that he hadn’t heard. Likely a good thing in this case.

"No, no. You don’t understand," Genma put a few fingers to his forehead to think over his next words. "You can not marry my son’s curse."

Tatewaki was taken aback by this statement. "What callousness is this? To call my pig-tailed goddess your curse. Would you defy the might of Tatewaki Kuno, fiend?! Tis your offspring who have curried our favor and should this be spoken of with greater care." During this tirade Tatewaki had pulled out his bokken and was threatening the fat martial artist with its tip jabbing his side.

Genma brushed the stick aside. "Let me explain," he found his tea gone cold and tossed it onto Ranma. The boy had just gotten free of Kodachi’s hold when the change occurred and some major mood swings affected the group.

Ranma-chan wiped the tea from her face and glared at her father. "Hey! Whaddja do that for?!"

"Pigtailed girl!" Tatewaki cried and grabbed the girl by waist, despite her protests.

"Ah, this be good thing, eh Saotome?" Kuno-san smiled like they had gotten away with a great conspiracy.

"But Ranma is-" Genma tried to explain the curses again when his wealthy, eccentric friend cut him off.

"With two engagements there be twice the dowry, no?"

Genma blinked, looked to his son, to the Kuno siblings who redefined the term delusional, then back to Kuno and slapped the man on the back. "Of course, Kuno! Hahahaha!" Genma almost cried he was so proud of his son just now. "We should celebrate the union of our families!"

"The Big Kashuha knows just the way!" Kuno answered jovially and led Genma through the house to a large bottle of sake.

Ranma-chan continued to struggle within Tatewaki’s grasp, "Pops!"

"We are bound by love eternal, my pigtailed girl!"

"AAAAAA!"

End Chapter One

* * *

Thanks to my prereader Vesa Uhlenius

I’ve heard this type of thing was done before, but hopefully I can do it better. ^^

If you are knew to Ranma ½ or don’t understand the Kunos, it’s best you not try. They’re idiotic and delusional to degree that my adversely affect your own sanity.

There should be about sixteen chapters in this series. That’s what I have planned at least. Also, interactions with the Tendous and regular Ranma cast will occur, of course, but don’t expect them to be regular characters.

This story’s outline was written one night as I procrastinated over an English paper. That’s right, insanity had set in. At least that’s what the other voices in my head tell me what happened.

Ja ne.