I'm posting the first section in three parts. Warning you now, there's a
"to be continued" at the end of the third part, but this is the larger
part of the story. The rest isn't written yet. Here's the disclaimer.

All Ranma ½ characters property of Rumiko Takahashi and companies that
produce and distribute her work. They are used without permission, but
no challenge to copyright status is intended. This story is not for
sale; anyone can have a copy free, but characters belonging to the
author (the three Great Chefs) should not be used elsewhere without
permission.

Thanks to my prereaders:  in  alphabetical order, Matt Chock, Gary
Kleppe, and Anand Rao. You guys rule.

Formatting note:  I have a problem with paragraphing in Word, involving
my use of the tab key turning into involuntary indent. This causes
patches in which paragraphs begin without indent. My apologies; I’ll try
to get this fixed once I can identify all those places.

Now, without further ado, the story.



Greetings. It is Kirin, leader of the Seven Lucky Gods Martial Artists,
who is speaking to you. It is well-known of Kirin that he is ruler of
Nekonlon, China, and there he fought Ranma Saotome for the heart of
Akane Tendo, and was defeated utterly. Kirin has gone on to other
pursuits, but he has not forgotten Akane Tendo’s kind attempt to cook
for him something besides rice and pickled vegetables, and so, when an
opportunity has presented itself, Kirin, being pragmatic and wise as
well as swift, handsome, and unspeakably wealthy, has taken advantage of
it. Kirin has sent a gift to Akane Tendo. This gift has provoked the
story that is called

Who is Frustrating the Great Chefs of Europe?
A Ranma ½ Fanfiction by Matt Posner


Chapter One

	Akane Tendo was in the middle of her trigonometry test when Principal
Kuno poked his evergreen-topped head into the classroom and called her
name.
	"Akane Tendo, ha ha, little waihine, som’un come see you, you come to
office right now, yes?"
	Akane nodded and put down her ruler and pencil. She was tired of
graphing sine and cosine curves anyway.
	"Cut hair over ears, yes?" the principal said as he walked with her
through the halls. "Shave sideburns."
	"I don’t have any sideburns!" Akane snapped at him.
	"Ha ha, use straight razor on mustache. Wash upper lip with special
pineapple juice. Ha ha."
	Akane ignored his babbling.
	To her surprise, she saw her father and Genma Saotome in the office.
Principal Kuno walked off, still prating about special pineapple juice,
adding in "Big kahuna get some and show them."
	"Dad! What’s wrong?"
	Soun beamed. "Akane! Something wonderful has happened! We have the most
marvelous house guests! I want you to come home and meet them right
away!"
	"The best part," Genma said, "is the free food."
	Akane went back to class, gathered up her books, and went to meet her
father on the front steps of Furinkan. As she headed for the front
entrance, Ranma emerged from a classroom and fell into step beside her.
	"Where you headed, Akane?"
	"Home, if it’s any of your business. Something about house guests
bringing free food."
	"Well, that would sure be a change," Ranma admitted. "Think I’ll come
check it out."
	"Suit yourself."
	Suddenly Ranma seized her and leapt forward. Behind them, Akane heard a
loud SPLAT! When Ranma landed, she realized one of his hands was over
one of her breasts. Immediately she put her fist in his face, and
following the satisfying grunt of pain, turned to see what had caused
the noise.
	"Special pineapple juice," Principal Kuno said, his jaws dripping with
it. He was holding a large pitcher. Some of its sticky contents had been
transferred to the tile floor. "Change bad long-hair students into good
students. All hair fall out, everyone big smiling, yes?"
	While Ranma slumped to the floor, Genma Saotome came striding up the
stairs and into the school, followed more casually by Soun.
	"Now just a moment," Genma said to the Principal. He puffed up his
chest, and his glasses gleamed as he pressed his lips together. "I find
myself wondering why you would choose to throw pineapple juice at my
son."
	"He does this junk all the time, pop," Ranma groaned as he started to
get up.
	"Ah ha," Genma said. "So he’s assisting you with your martial arts
training."
	Akane wasn’t interested in this discussion. She went to her father.
"Who’s staying with us, dad?"
	"It’s our salvation," Soun said, grinning. "With the help of these
three gentlemen, you’ll be able to get married all the sooner! They’ll
save us all, Akane! They’ll save us all!"
	"Who are they?!? If you think I’m going to get married, you can forget
it!"
	"They’re…" Soun nodded his head respectfully, as if speaking of a
departed relative. "They’re the three greatest chefs in all of Europe."
	As she stood struggling to find words, Akane could hear behind her
Principal Kuno say, "Big kahuna no waste special juice on little
kahuna."
	Genma gave a small, mocking laugh.  "Little? I’ll have you know you’re
looking at a master of the Saotome School of Anything-Goes
Indiscriminate Grappling."
	 "Big kahuna feed mahi-mahi with secret sauce, change little kahuna
into…"
	 "Well, if you think you can make me eat anything you serve, you’re
sadly mistaken, my friend." 
	"Like you ever turned down free food, Pop!" Ranma inserted.
	 "Shut up, boy! This argument is a matter of honor."
	"You’re crazy!" Ranma said.
	 "Big kahuna _make_ you eat!" the Principal shouted, resuming his part
of the argument.
	 "Is that a challenge?" Genma seemed eager for it to be one. "Ranma,
the honor of our school is at stake."
	 "The three greatest WHAT?" Akane finally shouted.
	"The three greatest chefs," Soun said. "Chef Pierre, master of fish and
flesh, from the French Riviera; Chef Luigi, a pasta specialist from
Venice, Italy; and Chef Gottfried, Vienna’s finest pastry maker." His
cheeks were red and stretched from smiling. "They’re going to teach my
little girl to cook, and then she can get married and…"
	"No way!" Akane shouted. "I’m tired of everyone trying to teach me how
to cook! I don’t need any stupid cooking lessons!"
	As she stomped back up the hallway, she could vaguely hear Principal
Kuno and Genma shouting at each other about some kind of martial arts
duel. "Humph!" Akane said. "I’d better go finish that test."
	One leap put Ranma next to her. "Don’t need cooking lessons, huh? Or is
the real truth that you’re afraid the lessons won’t work, and you’ll
still turn the kitchen into a nuclear war zone?"
	Akane was about to punch him again. "Oh, forget it," she said. "This is
too stupid even to fight over."
	
When she got home that evening, there was a large black truck pulled out
outside her house. Delicious smells came from the house. Ranma, who was
with her but  rubbing his jaw instead of talking, ran ahead to look in
the truck. Akane stopped and watched him. He leapt to the top of the
vehicle, ran to the back, and leaned over and in to study the contents.
Then he dropped down and ran inside. Akane shrugged and headed for the
front door. It was standing wide open. As Akane stepped inside, a
delightful but alien aroma caught her nose. The odor was subtle, almost
sensual; alternately it was delicate and strong, and seemed almost to
_throb_ with power. She found herself moving toward it…
… and a short, very fat man in trousers, a white tank-top, and a puffy
white hat lurched out of the kitchen, directly into her path, his eyes
wild as he swung a huge ceramic bowl at her head. "Try my. . ." he
shouted.
Startled, Akane kicked the bowl out of his hand and into his face, then
sank her fist into his soft gut and planted a high kick into the bowl
where it rested across his head. The fat man toppled over backwards, red
ooze pouring through the cracks in the bowl.
"Oh, no!" Akane said. "Did I…"
The sides of the bowl fell away. The delicious odor emerged from a heap
of spaghetti and red sauce on the man’s face. His eyes were rolled back
into his head, but his pink tongue darted almost autonomically at the
mound of food that surmounted him.
"Nice going, Sis," Nabiki said from the stairwell. She leaned over the
banister with a clever look on her face. "You just kayoed tonight’s
dinner."
"Is that one of those stupid chefs?" Akane said. Now that she looked at
the man, she saw he didn’t look dangerous. He was fat, small, and soft,
and the hat he was wearing was the kind of hat they wore on cooking
contest shows. He must have been showing her the food, rather than
attacking her with it.
"Chef Luigi," Nabiki said. "He gave Kasumi the night off. Figures she
went to go cook for Dr. Tofu. Hope Tofu has homeowner’s insurance."
"They’re really here," Akane said. "Why?"
"Figures I have to do the explanations again," Nabiki said. "I am just
simply _dying_ for a little bit of character development. Oh, well.
First off, look at this." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a
mallet. "Whoops. You’ve got to stop borrowing my clothes, Akane. Ah,
here we go." She tossed aside the mallet and pulled out an envelope with
Chinese characters on it and tossed it to Akane.
Akane recognized the writing:  it said "Nekonlon." From the envelope she
pulled out a card. Fortunately, the text on the card was written in
Japanese.

"Dear Akane Tendo:

Greetings. It is Kirin, leader of the Seven Lucky Gods, who is writing
to you. Kirin remembers you kindly for trying to cook good food to
please him. Kirin remembers that your fiancé said he did not like your
cooking.  Kirin recently learned that the three best chefs in Europe
were touring Japan appearing on television cooking game shows. Kirin is
wise and thoughtful and also unspeakably wealthy, so he has hired them
to live with your family for a week to teach you how to cook in a way
that will win your fiancé’s heart. Kirin does not understand why you and
your fiancé cannot simply eat rice and pickled vegetables,  but Kirin
wants you to be happy. It will cost your family nothing because Kirin is
paying for everything, because of course Kirin is staggeringly wealthy
and Kirin owns enormous quantities of gold, jewels, and priceless jade
vases from long-ago Chinese Imperial Dynasties, and Kirin also holds
stock in IBM and Wal-Mart. Kirin wants you to be happy.

Signed,

Kirin"

	Akane looked down at Chef Luigi, who was beginning to stir. This whole
thing was ridiculous.  (Yeah, I know, but please avoid the cheap shot –
author.) This guy wasn’t going to teach her anything.
	"Well, there you have it, Sis," Nabiki said. "Kirin’s quite a letter
writer, huh?"



Chapter Two

	Inside the truck was the most fully stocked kitchen Ranma had ever
seen. Besides several humming refrigerators, there were three different
kinds of stove burners, two different kinds of ovens, and a tremendous
variety of sparkling utensils and multiple sizes and shapes of pot and
pan. A spice rack mounted against the front of the truck held what
looked like at least two hundred different seasonings, labeled in many
languages. A large pot of soup was simmering on one of the burners.
Ranma stepped over to it, picked a ladle from the wall, and was about to
taste it when a bizarre voice yelled, "Stop!"
	Ranma leapt out of the way of a hurtling butcher knife. It clanked
against the wall near the spice rack. He turned rapidly toward the rear
entrance of the truck, spotted his assailant and launched a flying kick.
The man, whoever he was, went flying out the back of the truck and
landed in the street. Ranma climbed out after him. He was a tall, lean,
black-haired man with a waxed mustache. He was wearing a chef’s hat. He
lay in the road, mumbling in French. His eyes jogged around in their
sockets.
	"Great, this is one of those crazy chefs," he said.
	"That’s right, boy," Genma said from nearby. "That’s Chef Pierre, and
Akane has just knocked out Chef Luigi."
	"At least no one knocked out the other guy yet."
	"Well, actually," Genma said, "Happosai was here earlier, and…"
	"Never mind, Pop, I get the picture. Look, do you really think these
guys are for real?"
	"I’ve already eaten a lunch prepared by Chef Pierre, and a delicate
sponge cake baked by Chef Gottfried. They’re for real all right, Ranma.
And I’ve got news for you:  you’re going to take lessons from them
also."
	Ranma imagined long hours in the kitchen with odd-smelling gaijin, and
with the stenches, flying debris, and explosions that always attended
Akane’s efforts. "No thanks, Pop."
	Genma stooped and lifted Chef Pierre to his feet. Chef Pierre’s eyes
rolled in various directions as the elder Saotome carried him to the
truck and leaned him against the back bumper.
	"First of all," he said, "you owe it to your fiancée to stand by her
side in this, her greatest challenge. Second of all, and much more
important, you’re going to need cooking skills yourself to defend our
family honor against Principal Kuno in the pineapple cooking contest."
	"The _what?_"
	"The pineapple cooking contest."
	Ranma imagined long hours in the kitchen dodging pineapples and cans of
pineapple juice, blocking flying coconuts, and barely ducking out of the
way of a wide variety of shears, electric razors,  and grenades full of
depilatory.
	"A cooking contest against Principal Kuno? Forget it."
	"Not against Principal Kuno," Genma said. The setting sun shone red on
his glasses. "He’s going to pick a representative from his own martial
arts family to compete, the same way I’ve picked you."
	Ranma imagined a cooking contest against Tatewaki Kuno. Huge pots
stirred with wooden swords. Wall-sized pinups of the Two Hot Tamales.
Impromptu poetry about stir-fry.
	"What do I get out of this?"
	"You defend the honor of the Saotome school of…"
	"What do I get out of this?"
	"Well…"  Genma scratched his head. "I was sort of hoping I wouldn’t
have to tell you what the additional victory conditions were."
	Ranma imagined opening an industrial oven and, wearing Akane’s
pig-shaped oven mitts, pulling out a huge roast panda.
	"Tell me the additional victory conditions."
	"Well, if you win, Principal Kuno has to pay for all repairs to the
Tendo dojo for the next year. That would take a lot of pressure away
from us, Ranma."
	Ranma nodded. "OK, but what if his team wins?"
	"Well…" Genma pressed his hands together. "You see…"
	"Spit it out, Pop."
	"Principal Kuno shaves you bald in front of your entire school."
	"No!"
	"Don’ taste ze soup stock before eet  ees done," Chief Pierre mumbled
from his perch on the truck bumper. One of his eyes was back in its
orbit; the other still rolled crazily. "Zees ees beeg no-no, yes?"
	"Excuse me a minute, Ranma." Genma walked over to Chef Pierre and
thumped him lightly on the side of the head with the heel of his hand. 
	"Ah, that’s better," Chef Pierre said. "I was beginning to lapse into a
silly accent. It is just, you do not taste the soup stock before I am
completely satisfied with it."
	"You threw a knife at me!" Ranma shouted.
	"I threw it at the wall next to you," Pierre snapped. "If I had hit
you, I would have gotten your blood in my soup."


Chapter Three


Deep Character Development Time:

Chef Luigi --   Chef Luigi was born in Venice, Italy in the two-room
apartment of his poor parents, Chef Angelo and Chef Angela. Though he
was too young to remember, he imagines remembering the rough hands of
the midwife, Paola Antonina the Elder, drawing him from the womb. He
imagines remembering the coarse caress of the towel with which she wiped
the blood from his downy infant skin. He remembers how the umbilical
cord that bound him to his mother’s interior was preserved in pickling
fluid, and how on moonlit nights, as he lay in his crib, he looked up at
that gleaming strand on the mantelpiece and felt for sure that he would
someday make one of those for his own. When he was six, Paola Antonina
the Younger, who cared for him while his parents were at work in the
inferior restaurants that were the only ones who would employ them,
explained to him that he could never make one of those, because only
women made them when they had babies. "Then," he said impulsively to
himself, "I’ll make something else just like it." So he became a pasta
chef. Umbilicus after umbilicus he squeezed from the vesicular tubing of
his spaghetti maker; umbilicus after umbilicus he cast across the smooth
wooden bars of his pasta dryer.  By the time he was nine he could tie
his own farfalle and twist his own gemelli. By the time he was thirteen,
Paola Antonina the Youngest was his constant companion. "Ooooh," said
she. "You taste just like spaghetti down there." They rode together on
motorboats and gondolas along the canals; he fed her fettucine with
delicate white sauce, and a steady diet of other things besides. Then
one morning, when he was seventeen, he arose from his bed, leaving her
sleeping, and crept out to the kitchen to begin stuffing chilled clam
filling into the evening’s dinner ravioli, when he beheld a sight that
was pure nightmare:  the jar containing the pickled umbilical cord was
gone!
	When the new maid, Vittoria Paolezza, arrived in the morning, he leapt
at her throat. Only the steadying hand of Paola Antonina the Youngest
kept him from committing murder that day.
	"What’s-a the big deal-a?" said Vittoria Paolezza, lighting a
cigarette, tapping the ash into the nearby bowl of clam stuffing.  "I
throw it away-a de-a garbage-a."
	"Why are you talking so strangely, you stupid hag?" shouted Chef Luigi.
	"I’m-a sorry, I have-a the cold," answered the maid.
	At age twenty, Chef Luigi married Paola Antonina the Youngest, only to
have her run away from home two days later to take up residence with her
secret lover, a middle manager at an olive oil company. A month later,
she gave birth to Chef Luigi’s son, Octavio. Chef Luigi was unable to
obtain the umbilical cord. Octavio and his mother moved to the isle of
Crete. Attempting to comfort their son, Chef Angelo and Chef Angela both
fell dead of food poisoning at a Belgian restaurant in Sorrento.
	It was the latest in many blows to Chef Luigi’s confidence.
	"I want to go back to the womb," said Chef Luigi.
	This did not prove possible, so he continued to make pasta.

Chef Pierre:

	Chef Pierre’s mother was eaten by a bear.
	"My mother is a fish," he said.
	No one believed him.
	Chef Pierre has three sons who all think "Jurassic Park" is a real
place. The oldest, Damian, 24, keeps wondering who did the animal
training for the dinosaurs in the movie.
	It is hard to be Chef Pierre.
	Chef Pierre had no girlfriend until he was 21, because his acne was
very severe. At 21, he got a job roasting sheep at Café Dantesque in
downtown Cannes. He used the money to pay a dermatologist. Two years
later, he married his first wife, Genevieve, a hairspray tester. Damian
was born a month later. While Pierre struggled to open his own
restaurant, Genevieve took a vacation diving near the ruins of the
Titanic, and caught her wetsuit on the projecting, coral-encrusted edge
of an open porthole, and drowned. Two months later, to relieve his
grief, Chef Pierre married Marie, a girl from the Pyrenees. He felt more
sure about Marie than he had about his mother.
	"Marie really is a fish," he said.
	Chef Pierre’s restaurant, Le Boeuf, was a success, but he became
physically weary, and soon handed over management to a lieutenant,
cooking there only one night a week in order to spend more time with
Marie and his second son, Antoine. Antoine was the sort of child who
would go to school every day in Mickey Mouse ears if allowed to do so.
Soon this wore out Marie, who developed a heart murmur. She moved to
Algiers, divorced Pierre, and married a middle manager at an Algerian
wine company, whose slogan was written by Brendan Behan:
	"Come one, come all, American swine, and drink of our Algerian wine.
‘Twill turn your eyelids black and blue, and damn well good enough for
you."
	Chef Pierre entered the darkest time of his life. He sold Le Boeuf and
opened another restaurant the name of which I can’t translate into
French. There he met a cocktail waitress, a Russian émigré named Vanna,
who seduced him. He realized she was a dishonest person when she showed
him what she said was Thurman Thomas’ Superbowl Ring, that he had given
her as a gift after a one-night passionate encounter.
	"Nonsense," said Chef Pierre. "Thurman Thomas would not cheat on his
wife."
	The ring said "Le Ring d’ Superbowl" on the front.
	Chef Pierre married Vanna.
	He was sure this time; he was specific.
	"Vanna is a flounder," he said.
	They had a son. The son looked more like Thurman Thomas than like
Pierre. They named the son Alexandre.
	Chef Pierre divorced Vanna. A year later, she married Damian, who
became his brother’s father, while Pierre became Alexandre’s father and
grandfather, assuming Alexandre was of his blood; if not, Pierre was
only Alexandre’s grandfather. It took several years to sort out these
family relationships.
	It is hard to be Chef Pierre.
	Chef Pierre is a testy person.
	But he is one of the greatest chefs in Europe.
	"All fish are my mother," he says.
	This time he’s got it right.


Chapter Five
No, Excuse me.

Chapter Four

	Akane sat in her room making no progress on her chemistry homework. In
a chair at her desk, she lazily kicked out with one foot, brushing a
collection of mallets she used as footrests.
	"I wonder where I got all those things," she said to herself.
	She had passed another unconscious chef in the hallway: a man in his
sixties, white-haired, balding, wearing, besides the usual hat, an apron
stained with flour. Flour was also on his hand and even his flat,
time-worn face. These people were really getting on her nerves. But
everything was getting on her nerves today. Kasumi’s cooking had enough
fiber in it, so why . . .  no, there was no point in wondering about
that. She turned back to her homework.
	"Now, how many moles of carbon are in…" she said to herself, when 
there was a dramatic creaking noise from overhead. In one smooth motion,
she turned, rose, threw the chair back, and looked up.
	There, arrayed on the ceiling in a green leotard and a chef’s hat, was
the Black Rose, Kodachi Kuno.
	"What?" Akane shouted. "What now?! What?! What?!"
	"Oh, nothing, dear girl," Kodachi said, dropping down. "I was in the
neighborhood, so I thought I’d drop in and spy on . . . er, visit my
darling Ranma. But I couldn’t resist seeing you struggle with your silly
homework. Are you as good at chemistry as you are at cooking, _hm?_"
	"What are you talking about? Why don’t you get out of here?" Akane
measured her distance to Kodachi; but Kodachi was fast, and the room was
too small for a flying kick. There were all those mallets under the
desk, left over from Kodachi’s previous visits, she now remembered, but,
though she was strong enough to use them, they were poorly balanced
weapons, ridiculously point-heavy with the short hafts,  not anything a
martial artist would use, other than for comedic effect.
	"Oh, I’ll go," Kodachi said. "After all, I have to get ready for the
cooking contest."
	Don’t ask, Akane told herself. Don’t ask. She continued measuring for a
kick; maybe there was enough space after all. A violent urge to ask
built up within her. Don’t ask, she told herself.
	"What contest, you ask?" Kodachi fluted. "Why, my battle against Ranma,
of course. My charming father has arranged it, for what purpose I cannot
tell, but _I_ shall turn it to _my_ purposes." She then began her insane
laugh, spun a ribbon, and scattered black rose petals throughout the
room. Akane finally launched her kick, but her foot got tangled in the
ribbon, and she fell to the floor, rolling and chopping through the
ribbon with her other foot, coming up again in fighting stance.
	"Oh, dear, so you want to fight, do you?" Kodachi grinned. "Why, that’s
_exactly_ what I had in mind. Why don’t _you_ participate in our little
contest too? Unless you’re afraid, of course!"
	"I’m not afraid of you!" Shouting this, Akane realized her temper was
getting the better of her. _Everyone_ was afraid of Kodachi. Kodachi was
insane.
	"And the prize can be Ranma," Kodachi added. She spun her ribbon,
scattering more rose petals. Shakuhachi music played in the background.
She laughed and sprang toward Akane’s window. "Ta taaa!"
	Akane’s window was shut.
	The shakuhachi music stopped. Kodachi slid down onto the floor, sat up
blinking, and rubbed her head. "My, that was somewhat painful. I must
remember to check my exits. How bizarre, that a mere window should prove
an obstacle for one with my talents. But I shall not be daunted. For am
I not the Black  . . ."
	Her last words were lost as Akane booted her out of the now-open
window. "I’ll beat you at your stupid contest, and I don’t care what the
prize is!"
	There was a small puff of dust in the distance.