By Paks

URL: http://www.geocities.com/rwinton2003

Chapter 3a: Who’s the new kid?

Release Date: 5/1/05

Disclaimer

1) The characters and story of Ranma 1/2, Tenchi, Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon belong to their respective creators, and are used here without permission or license.

2) No claims to the above copyright are made by the author of this work.

3) This work is for non-commercial use ONLY, and is produced for the enjoyment of fans only.

4) This work is the expression of the author and the depiction of the Ranma 1/2, Tenchi, or Sailor Moon characters herein are in no way represented to be a part of Ranma 1/2, Tenchi, Dragon Ball Z or Sailor Moon as depicted by the original author and copyright holder(s).

Authors note: This story is set to be a mega-crossover, you have been warned

**********

The evening was a little cool as Ranma slowly walked towards the Tendo dojo. This was not the first time she had lost to that red haired girl Kaori Nite. Usually he only needed to perform the Saotome special technique once before he won. Those girls had even saved her again. Grumbling to herself she wished she had some hot water to turn back into a guy.

Changing her line of thought she wondered idly about the girls that kept saving her, they had certainly been powerful, especially that one who called herself Sailor Moon. She had noticed the similarities between the energy Sailor Moon was throwing about and the new energy that she had. Wondering if she should ask the girls about it the next time she saw them she began to examine the new energy slowly swirling around with her ki. Stumbling to a halt, her eyes widened as she noticed that her ki and the new energy had completely merged and both reserves of energy had grown considerably.

Spinning around and looking back towards Juuban she somehow knew exactly where that Sailor Moon girl was, only now noticing that she could feel a strange link to the her. Wondering why she hadn’t noticed the strange link made up of ki and the new energy before now, Ranma picked up the pace slightly towards the Tendo’s. At the speed she had been going she was going to miss breakfast.

Arriving back at the Tendos’ place, Ranma found all the lights were switched off, and the family was sleeping. She crept into the kitchen and put a kettle on to heat. Before the kettle had the opportunity to whistle she whipped it off the stove and dumped the contents over her head, sighing in relief as she returned to her male form. When his stomach began to growl he opened the fridge and looked for something to eat. Ranma blessed Kasumi when he saw that the older girl had saved him some dinner.

Returning to stealth mode Ranma turned quietly to slip up his room and leave his late return unnoticed, however Nabiki was already standing at the kitchen door with her arms crossed tapping her foot. Shuddering a little, he waited for Nabiki to blackmail him as usual and he wasn’t disappointed.

“Ranma, Ranma, Ranma, sneaking in this late and expecting no consequences.” Stated Nabiki smugly when she noticed Ranma’s shudder, mistaking it for fear.

“Yeah, yeah, get it over with Nabiki.” Ranma answered drawing himself to his full height.

“Akane was quite upset when you disappeared yesterday afternoon…” By now Nabiki was looking like a cat that had just swallowed the canary “…and she was even more upset when you didn’t come home for dinner.”

Grimacing Ranma glared at Nabiki “It’s not like I care about what that Tomboy thinks.”

Ignoring his outburst, Nabiki continued “When she finds out how late you got home there will be hell to pay.”

“And you want what, for me to pay for you to keep quiet?”

A little taken aback that Ranma wasn’t immediately offering his wallet to her, Nabiki tried a different tactic. “That’s not all she will be finding out” Nabiki added innocently.

Blanching, and fearing the worst Ranma caved “Okay, Okay, how much?”

“2000 yen.”

“Just put it on the tab” sighed Ranma, in his mind that ice-cream he had been drooling over for a month flew away with the wings of his lost yen. Tiredly Ranma walked past Nabiki, knowing that if he pushed past her, as he was tempted to, she would either charge him more or set Akane on him.

**********

The next morning Ranma awoke to the usual sensation of falling, and with a groan adjusted his body so that he was ready for the morning spar. This routine had been continuing ever since he had left on his training trip, although the falling usually only happened in towns when the stayed in apartments. Considering creative minor attacks that he could use without injuring his pop too badly, Ranma landed lightly on his feet and assumed a defensive stance.

Genma landed behind Ranma and immediately began to taunt him. While Genma denigrated his manhood, his fighting, and even his honor, Ranma seethed and wished just once he didn’t have to pull his punches. After all, his mother would be upset – and he knew how she would get if she were to become upset.

Refusing to return his fathers verbal taunts for once, Ranma proceeded to play with him just like when he had played with Akane during their first match at the dojo. A tap here, a foot swipe there, and soon Genma started to get angry.

“Fight me boy, or are you too much of a girl to spar with your own father” Screamed Genma, the fat bald man had already started to sweat and pant.

“Sorry pops, you’re too slow for me to fight seriously now, maybe if you get some more training from Happosai you might be able to lay a finger on me” Answered Ranma as he redirected a punch aimed at his head flinging his father into the koi pond.

“Breakfast is ready.” Chimed the ever oblivious Tendo daughter.

Running inside to secure his place at the breakfast table Ranma sat down, happy that he had stayed in male form since waking up for a change. Akane looked at him from her place and grimaced as if something very distasteful had entered her presence. Nabiki wasn’t even awake enough to smirk at her sister’s attitude.

Next Genma dragged himself in, his panda fur smelling like the koi pond. Kasumi frowned at him as water pooled on the floor with every step he took. Sloshing his way over to the table Soun edged away a little to avoid getting wet.

Over the course of breakfast Nabiki slowly woke up and began to eye Ranma. She needed to figure out why he was out so the night before, and for that matter where he had been disappearing to recently. Ranma after finishing off his meal, caught Nabiki’s gaze, and began to shift nervously in his seat. Nabiki watched Ranma fidget in his seat and smirked at his reaction to her simply looking at him. She quickly came to a disturbing conclusion however, that Ranma had begun to stray a little too far from her little sister. As such, she decided to implement some counter measures to resolve the problem – in addition to her revenge of course.

Akane who shared some measure of her eldest sisters obliviousness completely missed the exchange between Nabiki and Ranma. Grabbing both her bag and Ranma’s pigtail, she cheerfully yelled goodbye and began running to school. Ranma stumbled behind her as gracefully as he could with her hanging on to his hair.

**********

Artemis padded up to Minako and began to outline how and why they didn’t have enough data on the new enemy to come to any conclusions about its origins, but it was like talking to a brick wall - the girl was distracted and paid little attention to what he was saying. Concerned that Minako wasn’t paying attention, as she normally did when the other scouts weren’t there to distract her, the moon cat asked her what was wrong. Minako sighed and stared at the clouds. Just as Artemis had given up hope on getting a response she began to talk, she spoke about feeling like something was missing from her life.

"One who watches love, is watched by love. I wonder which philosopher said that…" Minako mused.

“Don’t be silly Minako, nobody ever said anything like that.” The cat answered, hoping his charge would focus on the problem at hand.

Still on her own wave length Minako continued along the same theme "I wish that a nice guy would approach me with some roses and say 'young lady won't you go out with me tonight?'"

"Unfortunately the world only works like that in dreams.” Artemis sighed at the lost chance to discuss serious scout business.

"When am I going to meet the person that I'm destined for Artemis?"

Minako watched as a ball rolled towards her and lamented the loss of the time to do anything other than save the world. She had loved playing volleyball back in England. She still had time for her own pastimes back then, despite having her Sailor V alter ego. Watching a boy come out of the gym and approach her she picked up the volleyball. The boy was Asai, a guy she had had a crush on for a while.

“Asai, are you still playing volleyball?” Minako asked as she threw the volleyball at him.

"I sure am. Why did you quit volleyball after coming back from England? Your flying somersault reception was really great." He answered as he caught the ball.

"Actually I wanted to continue volleyball, but…" She drifted off as the manager came out of the gym calling for her conversation partner to return to practise. She sighed as Asai hastily blurted out empty promises that they would catch up later and he had to go. Perhaps she was even a bit envious of his carefree pursuit of her favorite sport.

Artemis watched this exchange with concern. He worried for his charge. Of course he knew that she loved her princess dearly and took her duties quite seriously. She perhaps took her duties as a scout more seriously than any of the other scouts but the princess gave her credit for. He had, after all, watched the performance she put on for them when they were all together.

**********

Placing an empty teacup on a tray alongside various other tea accessories, Kaori Nite picked up the tray and prepared to take it down to professor Tomoe’s laboratory. The red heads strong grip on the tray and whitened knuckles were the only things that betrayed her inner frustrations at how unsuccessful the search for talismans had been to date. Slowly pushing the slightly ajar door down to his lab open with her shoulder she began descending into the darkness with the tea tray.

As Kaori Nite entered the deeper recesses of the Tomoe laboratory the scientist that she was searching for stiffened as he detected her presence. Without turning around he began to express his displeasure. His ire was directed at the woman that he had place in charge of the search.

“Where is the Talisman that you promised that you’d get for me?” The professor’s voice was deceptively tranquil.

“None of the targets carried the talisman professor.”

“What of the daimon that I gave you to aid in your search?” This time the question was slightly louder.

“Sailor Moon and her lackeys destroyed it while I was occupied examining a heart crystal.”

“Why then didn’t you return with the heart crystal? They contain quite a bit of power and could help create even more powerful daimons.” The professor’s voice had risen into a loud and insane rant. Luckily his lab was sound proof so neither his daughter upstairs in the house, or his neighbors, could hear him.

Placing the tea tray down in an empty space Kaori Nite began to pour the tea into the empty tea cup. She hoped against hope that this distraction would calm the professor down. Apparently it worked because his next statement was delivered in a somewhat calmer tone as he picked up his cup and took a sip.

“Perhaps the pressure is getting to me, my shoulders are stiff from working so hard on these experiments all the time.” Sipping his tea seemed to relax him even further, however his next statement was delivered in a menacing, a tone that seemed to show that appearances could be deceiving. “Perhaps next you would like to try a sportsman whom I have had my eye on for some time?”

“Professor?” Kaori Nite questioned.

Shoving an envelope labeled ‘top secret’ into her hands he turned back to his experiments. The last words that he uttered were “get the boy and don’t disappoint me.”

Quietly retreating out of the lab Kaori Nite looked in the envelope that the professor had given her. Opening it, she pulled out a photograph of a young boy holding a volley ball. Turning the photograph over there were some details on how to find the boy written on the back. Tipping out the envelope to find out what else was in it she quickly caught the daimon egg in her palm. Smirking in her usual evil way she thought to herself ‘no professor, this time I won’t disappoint you.”

**********

Ranma just knew that something bad was going to happen when Akane actually managed to drag him into the classroom before the bell for the first time all term. He had even managed to avoid Kuno and his usual morning rants. Securely wrapping his tail around his waist he braced himself for yet another day in his chaotic life.

Immediately upon crossing the threshold of the classroom, Akane released Ranma’s pigtail in a less than gentle fashion. Recovering his balance, he glared at the offending fiancé and made his way to his seat. As the teacher entered the room he prepared himself to catch up on the sleep, only to stop and look curiously at the boy that followed the teacher into the classroom.

The new boy was dressed in a Farinkan High School uniform and cut a dashing figure. Glasses sitting on his nose simply enhanced his attractive facial features rather than making him appear nerdy. Dark unruly hair gave him a young and innocent look. The reactions from the female half of the class was identical to their reaction to Ranma’s arrival, with one exception – even Akane was looking at this new boy with a small measure of appreciation. Despite Akane’s frequent declarations that she hated boys, here she actually looked interested in one.

Seeing Akane’s reaction to the newcomer Ranma didn’t know whether to be hurt or ecstatic. On one hand she was still his fiancé, but on the other he didn’t really love her and this might be an opportunity to get rid of one of his unwanted engagements. Deciding to sleep after the boy had introduced himself Ranma tried to appear nonchalant and leaned back in his chair.

“Introduce yourself.” The teacher directed the boy as the class gradually quieted.

“My name is Kenjiro Hayasaki, heir to the Hayasaki School of Martial Arts Chindogu.”

Hearing this Ranma snorts, wondering when the challenge would come from this new school. The fact that sounded so ridiculous made him lump it amongst the crazier martial arts styles that he had encountered. He idly wondered whether this student had moved to the district just to challenge him or, and at this thought he shuddered, his fat and lazy pops had engaged his girl side again.

Kenjiro heard Ranma’s snort from the back of the room and glanced at the martial artist. He smirked evilly and his glases glinted menacingly as he pushed them further up his nose. Feeling a cold chill Ranma glanced around the room nervously.

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Authors note:

Thanks for all of your reviews please keep them coming.

This time I have left a lot hanging. Yes Ranma is still sticking around Nerima. Well he has for the last two years – it would be an extremely difficult decision for him to leave (even if he is getting sick of all the crap).

Matchup? All will be revealed in good time – I don’t want to rush these things. But I will say one thing – most people know my stance on Akane matchups. The possibilities are endless (it will probably be one of the Senshi, it could still be one of the NWC though).

Sorry I took so long to get this short chapter out, I have recently gotten hooked on Warcraft 3. Maybe I’ll even make some cool maps and post them on my site.