Second Chances Part 1 A Ranma 1/2 + Bubblegum Crisis Fanfic by Shaule Sachs =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Version 0.2 #include #include #include #include =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Soun Tendo read the post card once again, "Hi. Bringing Ranma from China. Saotome." Wondering, he asked himself, "Ranma? Coming here?" Filled with emotions, he proclaimed to the Heavens, "Oh, how I've waited for this day!" Soun Tendo gathered his three daughters, explained that an old friend of his had a son named Ranma Saotome and that if one of his daughters married him, then the Tendo Family Legacy would be secured. "What?!?!? Don't we have a say in this?" an outraged Akane asked. "Akane's right," Kasumi stated calmly. "We've never even met Ranma." To which, Soun replied, "That's easily fixed. He's coming here today. You can meet him then." "Nani?" Nabiki exclaimed as her head exploded with pain. The pain receded as fast as it had come leaving her with the feeling that she swallowed an encyclopedia. A sense of deja vu settled over her. More to himself, Soun stated, "Recently, it seems, Ranma and my old friend, Genma Saotome, was been in China." "China?" Nabiki repeated woodenly as if she was reading from a script. "What's so great about China?" Akane wondered out loud. Kasumi got a worried look on her face and asked, "How old is he? Younger men bore me." Nabiki looked at Kasumi, then at Akane's long hair, then at her father, and seemed to recall something. A dim memory surfaced. Her sense of deja vu increased. Kasumi asked, "What kind of guy is this Ranma? Soun laughed and said, "No idea." Nabiki under her breathe said, "But... I do... I think." While examining her father face for a reaction, Nabiki repeated her father's statement, "No idea?" Soun honestly replied, "I've never met him." There was a commotion outside. "We have visitors," Kasumi remarked. Unsettled by the intensity of his daughters, Soun got up and said, "That must be they now!" //That will be Ranma, if I remember correctly,// Nabiki thought to herself. Soun came running back as a panda chased him. Nabiki was the only one who noticed the sign the panda was holding. It said, "Wait! I can explain!" Kasumi, in a scared voice, asked, "Daddy... Is this your friend?" Soun shook his head. Sarcastically Nabiki remarked to Kasumi, "A panda just decided to visit us? Happens all the time!" The panda turned away slightly and pulled a redhead in front of himself. The redhead was soaked to the skin and had a very obviously feminine figure. Upon seeing the redhead, Soun asked in a worried voice, "You... wouldn't be..." Nervously, the redhead replied to Soun, "Ranma... Ranma Saotome. Sorry about this..." It was at this point that Kasumi pointed out, "Ranma... is a girl, Daddy." To which Soun fainted. Akane and Kasumi tried to revive their father while Nabiki went into the kitchen get some hot water. She came back with it and some cups for tea. As Nabiki handed Ranma a cup of hot water, a look of recognition passed between them. "Thanks," Ranma said calmly as she poured the contents over her head. And wonders of wonders, she became a he. "If we could sit down, I can explain this," Ranma stated. Nabiki led the way to the dining room and sat down on Ranma's right. Akane, Kasumi, and Soun sat across from them. The panda had trouble getting through the doorway that lead to the dining room. Actually, the panda had gotten stuck, but wasn't going to admit it. Especially since none were paying the panda any attention. While the panda tried to escape the door jam, Ranma explained about Jusenkyo and its cursed springs. When Ranma finished his tale, a light came to Kasumi's face as she said, "Then the panda is..." "My baka father," Ranma stated as he threw a cup of hot water at the stuck panda, which turned into Genma Saotome, who had less trouble getting into the dining room finally. Once Genma was seated, Soun stated in a rare moment of understanding, "Cold water turns you, Ranma, into a girl, and hot water restores you... Your problem isn't so terrible after all." Soun then gestured at this daughters, "My daughter, Kasumi, nineteen, and Nabiki, seventeen, and Akane, sixteen. "Pick the one you want. She's your fiancee..." As Kasumi pushed Akane forward, she said, "Oh, he wants Akane!" At Kasumi's statement, Nabiki shot her older sister a hard, cold look. Kasumi was surprised to see the the anger in her sister's eyes, especially since it was directed at her. Nabiki's anger was such that Kasumi took an involuntary step away from her. "Nani?" Akane stated obvious to the interacting between her older sisters. "You must be joking! I hate boys!!!" Ignoring Nabiki for a moment, Kasumi happily stated to Akane, "So you're in luck! He's half-girl." "Me? Marry that... that... that pervert?!?!? Never!" Akane exclaimed. Ranma winced at being called a 'pervert', he hadn't done anything to deserve it. Nabiki was the only one who saw his pain though. Both Kasumi and Akane looked at their sister, who had remained silent since her return from the kitchen, with great surprise. They knew that of the three of them, she was the least traditional. An arranged marriage was at the top of her list of things wrong with the world. It was if Nabiki wasn't playing attention to them, like she was waiting for something. Nabiki sighed, soften her face, turned to her father, and said very formally, "Father. As eldest, Kasumi had the first choice.... For better or worse, she's made that choice. Therefore, if it is truly important... I'll marry Ranma." In response, Soun could only blink. Things were not going the way he envisioned it. He had thought that his daughters would be overjoyed at not having to secure their own marriage. But instead, they were outraged. He had hoped that Akane, his heir for his School, would willing accept this pledge as a matter of family honor, but she had been the most against it. Worse, he realized that Nabiki was correct. If anything, Kasumi, as eldest daughter, should be the one chosen... Nabiki sashayed over to Ranma, and said, "So your my fiancee..." In the background, they all over-heard the television say, "Greetings, I'm Kuroishi Ichiro... and this is the Eleven O'Clock news." "Since it's so late," Kasumi announced. "The Saotomes should stay overnight..." Kasumi thought a moment, stood up, and happily said as she walked out of the room, "I'll get the guest room ready!" "Tendo-san?" Genma asked in puzzled voice. During last month, his world had been turned upside-down. First, Jusenkyo and its curses, if that wasn't enough, then there was 'Mount Phoenix' and its 'bird-people,' what happened there... His mind refused to think about it. But mostly, it was the changes in Ranma since Jusenkyo that bothered him the most. If his mind was capable of it, the words he would have used to describe Ranma since Jusenkyo would have been 'more mature' and 'more skilled.' And now... He had brought Ranma to the Tendo to get away from everything that happened in China... He had expected some resistance... instead, Ranma was jumping for joy. Soun responded in the same dream-induced voice, "Yes, Saotome-san?" "Let's play a game of Go, while we wait," Genma replied. Akane watched the two fathers walk out with a bit of nervousness. She was left with Nabiki, who was giving her dark, anger looks for no reason she could think of, and Ranma, who she didn't know and was looking at her funny. Nabiki 'solved' Akane's problem by grabbing Ranma's hand and proceed to drag him towards the stairs. In a confused voice, Akane asked Nabiki, "Oneesan, where are you taking Saotome-san?" //Away from you,// flashed through Nabiki's mind as she walked up the stairs, but out loud she said, "I'm taking Ranma to my room." Akane noted the great familiarity Nabiki was taking with the strange boy, who was also a girl. Greatly confused and increasingly puzzled, Akane asked, "Why?" "I'll explained it to you when you're older, Imooto-chan," was Nabiki's reply with a wink to Ranma. Akane just stood there as she heard Nabiki's door open, then close. She shrugged her shoulders and went to go see if Kasumi needed any help. "You do realize that Akane-chan going to think that we're...." Ranma started then paused as he noticed that Nabiki had closed her door behind them. He gulped nervously. Nabiki seductively walked over to Ranma, giggled, and replied in a soft, sexy voice, "And that would be bad, my iinazuke, because?" "But," Ranma began. Nabiki looked at Ranma, sighed, and screamed in a low voice, "Unbelievable! She put you through TEN years of HELL! She abused you. And your fourteen year marriage was nothing but a joke to her... Akane spent all her time on acting..." Ranma just signed and said, "Maybe... Okay, maybe, I agree with you..." Nabiki opened her mouth, but Ranma put his index finger over her lips, and continue, "Regardless, we may or may not be in an deviated timeline or the actually Past. If we change things --" "The World comes to end?" Nabiki replied sarcastically. "That's how we got here in the first place..." Ranma sighed again and said, "It's chaos theory... Secondary, even third degree effects can, and do, have non-linear relationships to their causes. By changing small things, will cause big changes now or further down the road.... And you've already made a huge change..." Close to tears, Nabiki said, "After everything..." "It can be our only advantage," Ranma said quietly. "But," Nabiki said as a tear sled down her face. "We've been given a second chance! A chance to correct our mistakes!" "Our mistakes?" Ranma asked curiously. "I know what I did wrong..." Ranma trailed off. In a soft voice Nabiki replied, "My biggest mistake was letting you go, Ranma-kun..." So saying Nabiki walked up to Ranma and kissed him throughly. The kiss lasted until Kasumi walked into the room, since Nabiki didn't response to her knock, and said, "Oh my!" Ranma immediately moved away from Nabiki, blushed, and tried to think up an excuse to explain away what they were doing. Nabiki sighed and in a frustrated voice asked her sister, "What do you want? I'm busy..." Kasumi blinked and said, "I wanted to tell Ranma-san that the guest room is ready for him and his father..." "Thanks, Kasumi," Ranma said. Including both sisters, he replied, "Good night..." After Ranma left, Kasumi asked Nabiki, "Aren't you two moving a little too fast? You've just met..." "How can I explain it, Oneechan," Nabiki asked softly. "I love him... It's like I known him for fifty years or so... I've seen him at his best... And at his worse..." Visions of a demonic Akane beating Ranma, who takes the blows in order to calm Akane down, Akane throwing a naked Kodachi at him, and Cologne's dead body lying at his feet as fifty Amazons bow down submissively to a very embarrassed Ranma, flash through Nabiki's mind. She shook her head to clear such thoughts from her mind. In the pause, Kasumi noticed the love in her sister's eyes. It's something she hasn't seen in her sister's eyes since their mother death. In a hesitate voice, Nabiki asked, "Kasumi? If you were given the chance to set right your past wrongs, would you? No matter the cost?" "To correct one's mistakes?" Kasumi asked curiously. "Yes, you should fix your mistakes...." Nabiki smiled at her sister. "What mistakes have you made, Imooto-chan?" Kasumi asked worried. "You're not pregnant, are you?" Nabiki's face faults. "No. I'm not pregnant..." "But...." Kasumi was confused. What was going on... "Oneechan?" Nabiki stated to get Kasumi's attention. "Yes?" Kasumi replied. "I know I haven't said it too often, okay, never since Mother died," Nabiki began. "But, I do love you, Oneechan. I love Daddy too... Even if he's such a coward..." "And?" Kasumi prompted with a smile. Nabiki sighed and said, "And... and I love my Imooto too... Even if she's a psychopathic tomboy, who'll kill everyone who loves her..." "Nabiki, that's isn't a very nice thing to say," Kasumi admonished. Upon reflection, she added, "Even if, part of that, is true..." Next morning, Akane walked down to the dining room to discover her father was reading the paper, Mister Saotome had a very surprised look on his face and kept mumbling something over and over again in shock, and Kasumi was clearing off two set of dishes from the table approximately where Nabiki usually sat. Since she was puzzled, Akane asked, "Where's Nabiki, Oneechan? And where's... ah hmmm... that boy... uh hmmm... Ranma-san?" Kasumi looked up, motioned for Akane to sit down, and replied, "Oh, they went to school..." After countless repetition, one could understand Genma's mumbling as "he went to school without a fight." After Akane sat down, Kasumi handed her her breakfast, which she ate quickly, she got up, and as she headed for the door she said, "Off to school..." As the gate of Furinkan High came in sight, Akane picked up speed and shouted her battle cry of "I hate boys!" When she got the courtyard of the school, she stopped and stared. The entire student body was frozen in place and their eyes were widen in surprise. A few of the boys and some of the girls' faces were twitching. One of Akane's friends, Yuka, walked mechanically over to her and said, "He kissed her. He kissed her. He kissed her." "Who kissed whom?" Akane asked puzzled and more important wondering why she should care. In a conspiratorial voice Yuka replied, "That new guy, the hunk, Ranma, kissed Nabiki. He kissed her. They walked in holding hands. Kuno-sempai, who was waiting on you, made some remark about her being an 'ice queen' -- only interested in money -- So Ranma challenged Kuno-sempai.... He out-Kuno-ed Kuno.... And then... then... then he kissed Nabiki... like.... Wow... I wished I could be kissed by a hunk like that..." Yuka's voice trailed off as the hearts in her eyes got bigger. The bell rang and slowly, but surely, everyone walked into their homerooms too shocked to do much else... Thus the tradition of fighting Akane for date died... not with a bang, but a thud. It quickly circulated that Ranma was engaged to Nabiki, both were in love, and both frowned on the various sports clubs that had been fighting her for a date. To be truthful, the various sports clubs had wanted to quit, but were afraid of Kuno-sempai. But that ended when Ranma beat him, and Nabiki announced that she would be lenient to collect from those that left Akane alone. The rest of the day, Akane kept overhearing everyone speculate about the mysterious guy, who in one day swept Nabiki off her feet... [=== End of Part 1 ===]