-FFIRC data-
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TITLE: Cast Not Such Dreary Countenance

SERIES: CastNot
PART/CHAPTER/ACT: 1 of ?
SIZE:: ~18k
ANIME SERIES: Ranma 1/2
TYPE/GENRE:: Alternate Universe
EMAIL:: ryougaecho@abraxis.com
IRC NICK:: FanFic_TJ
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end FFIRC data
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Kasumi?
Kasumi. . . .never born. . not there to help the family bear the burden
of tendo san death.

On that thread. . 


C&C Welcome
MST's not welcome
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Colliding SYmphonies productions presents:
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"Cast Not Such Dreary Countenance"
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By: TJ
Based on work by Takahashi Rumiko, characters and settings used without
permission.
Not for profit, fan work

. . .and Buy Ranma1/2 stuff
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Part one- version 2.0
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Soun Tendo sat at the living room table and thumbed through the mail,
disgusted noises escaping his lips
as he rummaged through more bills. The last thing he needed was another
payment  of some kind to be made. Then he saw it. A post card with
unintelligible kanji on its front, framing a picture of a panda.
"China?" he muttered. "Now, who the hell do I know in China?" He flipped
over the card.


 Tendo-kun.

  Coming from China with Ranma as promised and planned.

   Arrive later in August.

  Genma Saotome.

Soun was quaking as he finished reading the scrawled words from his old
friend's hand. "At long last, a sign from you and your son. . .it's
about damn time you wrote, Saotome-kun." he checked the cancel date on
the postage.

August 20th.

"Well! They could be arriving any day now. I suppose I should let the
girls know." He trudged back to the living room.

As spacious as it was, it was terribly empty. There was a large, low
table, a liquor cabinet in a corner, and a TV on the wall. . .but it
seemed hollow to look at. He set the stack of bills on the table in the
place where Nabiki usually sat.

After a brief scan of the room, he went to the kitchen and put a kettle
on the stove, igniting the gas burner. He spared this room a glance as
well. It too was very drab and colourless. His limited cooking ability
left him with very little he could do with the spacious kitchen. It
seemed like such a waste, especially after she. . .

He shook his head. (I promised myself I wouldn't dwell on it again.) He
left the kitchen and headed upstairs.

He regarded the dirty wooden door. "Nabiki!" he called at the closed and
locked door.

"What is it?" her voice escaped muffled by the door.

"I need to speak with you!"

"Later. I'm busy," she said, clearly annoyed at the intrusion.

Soun grew angry, but calmed himself. He knew how to deal with his
daughter. "Bills came!" he shouted through the door. After a moment of
curious noise, Nabiki emerged wearing little more than a body suit
leotard with an oversized collar shirt over it, clearly leaving little
to the imagination..

She looked up at her father in annoyance. "Well? Where are they?"

"Downstairs."

"Oh, jeeze. Too lazy to bring them up to me, Daddy?" she said, her voice
dripping with venom. He felt his heat rising again, but sought to
control it quickly.

"I need to speak with you and Akane. Now go downstairs and wait for me."

Nabiki turned to go back to her room. "Come on. I don't have time for
you." 

The door slammed loudly on his face.

Soun growled. After a moment of though, he nodded to himself, apparently
deciding something.

He buried his fist through the door causing splinters to fly out the
other side. Nabiki shrieked in fright, scrambling back in her chair, as
he ripped the door off of his fist, ripping it out of it hinges in the
process. "What the hell are you doing?"

He entered the room, careful not to step on the papers or cd's strung on
the floor. His tone was very calm. "I ask very little of your time,
Nabiki. Now I think you owe it to me to hear what I have to say once in
a while." He walked over to her place on the bed. "I think it's not too
much to ask, what with everything I let you get by with."

She swallowed heavily. She would always forget too quickly who her
father was and what he did, but such reminders were not new to her.
She'd have to get a new door later. "Alright, Alright, I'm coming.
Jeeze." She began gathering some of her notes together as Soun left the
room and the debris.

===

"Akane!"

"What?" a muted reply came from down the hall.

"Come downstairs, please!"

"I'm practising!"

"Just for once will you do as I ask!?" he hollered.

After a moment, Akane opened the door to her room down the hall and
stepped out, her head coming to the top of the door frame. She was
holding a flute while her other hand smoothed her long hair.

"What is it, Dad?" she said, also sounding less than enthusiastic.

"I need to speak with you both. Please come downstairs."

She pulled her flute apart as she walked back to her room, her heels
hitting the floor soundly. "All right."

===

A few minutes later, Soun sat across from his two daughters at the
living room table. Though both were kneeling, Nabiki's head barely
passed Akane's shoulders.

"Fiancee`?"

"Yes. An old friend is returning from a training trip with his son, and
I've asked that he come here. He promised our schools would live on no
matter what happened to either of us.. . now with your mother gone, I. .
.was bereft of a son to pass the school to. Genma offered his son to
me."

"How sexist," Nabiki spat.

"Perhaps. . .I've been too soft on you girls, without your mother to
give you guidance. I may have been too lenient on you to make up for it.
. .but because of my errors, I have hurt the family. If anything can
be done to fix it, then engaging one of you to Ranma would help us."

"What!?" they chorused, leaning forward at the same time.

"I wouldn't steer you as wrong as you think I do, girls. If he's
unacceptable heir, then I'll break it. But he's an old friend who helped
me through times I might not have survived without his shoulder
to lean on. Show him respect when he arrives."

"But don't we get some say in who were going to marry?" Akane barked,
her face flushing slightly.

"Well, maybe he's good looking, Akane. No need to chew his head off
before he gets here."

"I hate boys."

"You hate everybody."

"Both of you hush," he ordered, the bickering grating his nerves.

"Yeah, when are they arriving?"

"His postcard from China said any day now."

"He's Chinese?" Nabiki asked, her tone darkening a bit. The thought of
being engaged to a foreigner. . .

"No. . .he and his father went on a training mission to China, to
further their martial arts skills."

"Oh great. . .he practises martial arts. Whopee," Akane dead-panned,
though her voice betrayed more interest than she intended.

"What is he like?"
"How old his he?"
"What's he look like?"
"How tall is he?"
"Does he do anything other than martial arts?"

"I don't know."

"Huh?" they chorused again.

"I've never met him."

Silence became deafening as his daughters sat dumbfounded, only to be
filled a moment later by a light rainfall.

===

Ranma bolted down the street, her chest bouncing annoyingly as her heels
hit the pavement, reminding her of her condition. Her clothes clinging
to her body and the fact that she was soaked through didn't help her
disposition much.

Genma, transformed, was running as well, but was slowly losing ground,
given the shortness of his panda-legs. Every time he thought he could,
he took a swipe at her to try to slow her down from her sprint. After
another series of swipes, Ranma evaded the last with a sudden back-flip,
and in mid-air changed into a jump kick. She landed neatly on Genma's
shoulder at an almost perfect angle, and he slowly fell over like a
ten-pin. He rose quickly, however.

"I said NO!" Ranma wailed, striking out at Genma rapidly. Genma parried
slowly, noting how much faster she was when cursed, but missed his mark.
Ranma scored with a powerful punch right where the solar plexus should
have been on a normal target.

Genma was far from normal now. He blinked twice at the fist buried in
his gut.

Genma belly-bucked as a counter and sent Ranma flying into a brick wall
at the end of the street. She crashed into it back first, causing the
wall to fracture a bit.

Ranma staggered, trying to regain her balance after being imprinted in
the wall behind her, but fell to the blackness quickly. He stood over
her as the rain began to let up, noting how ragged she looked. He
probably looked about the same.

Genma grabbed their dropped packs, and her, and began that fateful
march.

===

Nabiki adjusted her kimono a bit, tugging at the sleeves which seemed
the inappropriate length. Akane could only gawk. "How could you wear
that thing for these bums?"

"Who knows? He might have a bod. Besides, Daddy shut up when I put it
on." Akane nodded at that remark. "Maybe they'll actually get here
today."

"I can't believe you're looking forward to this!" Akane adjusted her
rather small skirt under the table.

"Maybe you need to cheer up," Nabiki said coolly, casting an arrogant
sneer at her sister. Soun returned from the kitchen with a kettle, set
it down, and opened the doors to the garden.

"My what a day!" he said with vim.

"LET ME GO!!!"

Everyone turned in the direction of the front door. "That must be them.
Saotome! Hisashiburi!" Soun ran towards the stairs and the front
entrance. Nabiki stood to follow.

Akane merely turned to face down the hall as she watched Nabiki walk
lightly. (Why are they so special?) she thought.

"AAAHHH!"

Akane got her answer as her father and sister ran back down the hallway,
followed by a huge panda. 

Akane's jaw dropped, not forgetting to notice the struggling form slung
over its shoulder. "Put me down you moron! You're scaring them
shitless!" a raspy voice called.

"What the hell is this, Daddy?" Genma drew up short as he looked at the
three of them. He set Ranma down in front of them, who stopped her
wriggling.

"Are you. . ?" Soun asked meekly, pointing at the small girl.

Ranma felt truly small. His father stood like a furry wall behind her,
so she was going to be stuck for a while. She looked up a Soun, who was
quite a tall man, maybe a few centimeters shorter than the fur ball
behind her. The short haired girl in the kimono looked large and quite
full figured, even with the kimono, and was an entire head taller. The
other girl in the short skirt towered over her, almost as tall as her
apparent father.

She gulped. Then looking up, she said,"I'm Ranma Saotome. . .sorry."

Akane regarded the very short boy who was soaking wet. They must have
been in the rain. Even though he was wet, his clothes were several sizes
too large. They looked like they'd fit her better.

Nabiki was getting the smell of the fur to prove that speculation. She
too looked at Ranma. "He is cute," she said mockingly.

"At last you're here, Ranma!" He grabbed her in a hug, double checked
what was poking his abs, pushed away from Ranma and passed out.

===

Akane knelt down beside her father where he passed out and began fanning
his face with her hands. Nabiki was giving Ranma dirty looks. "Some
fiancee`. . ."

The panda growled, shaking the hardwood floor with its resonance. Ranma
simply looked
depressed as she knelt beside Soun as well.

Akane wasn't impressed. "So what's your story?" Ranma merely sighed and
closed her eyes. 

Akane swallowed hard. She thought that she was the only one who could
look so depressed. "Hey, it can't be that bad. Where's your father?"

Ranma merely looked back at the panda. Soun's eyes began to flutter, and
he bolted upright screaming. "Ahhh!"

"What's the deal, Daddy? You get us all excited for this?" Nabiki
gestured in Ranma's direction.

"Where is Genma?" he demanded of Ranma, ignoring Nabiki. "He said Ranma
was a boy!"

"Sorry m`bout this. . .," Ranma uttered again. "But. . ."

"But what!?" 

"Knock it off, Dad! Look at her! She's probably seen worse days than
us!" Akane yelled back.

"Yeah, but you think you could tell the difference between a boy and a
girl by this age," Nabiki complained as she walked away.

"Psycho. . ," Akane breathed at Nabiki.

"And what about this Panda!?" Soun yelled again.

"What about it? It's not doing anything. If it was going to hurt us,
there wouldn't be too much we could do about it!" Soun seemed to be a
bit mollified at that rebuttal and fell silent. Akane placed her hand on
Ranma's shoulder. "It's not so bad. . .it's just that, he over reacts to
stuff like this. Alot."

"Mmmm," Ranma groaned, sinking deeper.

"Well, be that way then. Honestly," she spat as she stormed back
upstairs. (Nasty little street cat.)

Ranma didn't bother to look up at her and traded glances with Genma.

Soun seized Ranma suddenly. "If you're Ranma, then where is Genma? What
is going on here?" he demanded shaking Ranma around by her shirt. Ranma
broke his hold with little effort and walked away. "Pop'll tell ya
watcha need ta know," she uttered, pointing at the panda.

Soun slowly turned his head to the Panda who had yet to move since
sitting down. (Well, Hana, please give us strength in your absence.)
"Alright," he started. "Go ahead. Start talking."

The panda coughed into its paw briefly.

"arhem."
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Ranma walked into the garden where a Makiwara board was erected. Her
mood lightening, she moved towards it, only to be disappointed on her
second glance. It had been weather beaten and was thoroughly decayed. No
one had used it in quite some time, evidently. Throwing a light punch to
its ropes, a great deal of rotted debris shook free from the post. (What
has the old man done to me now? Jeeze. . .) she continued to lightly
smack the board, loosing herself in thought. (What a run down dump he
brought me to. Dull. Kinda lifeless if ya ask me. Dunno why anyone would
live here. But I guess it's here we stay. . )

*WHACK*

*WHACK*

(What to do? They're going to find out sooner or later. Yeah. One guy
and two girls?)

*WHACK*

(Well, it probably won't be much of a problem if he was gon `ta marry me
off. hmph. Jerk.)

*WHACK*

('It's not so bad. . .') she thought of Akane's soft face trying to
placate her with those words.

(Sister, you don't know the half of it.)

*CRACK*

The makiwara board disintegrated at Ranma's final blow.

===

Next part is 2
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C&C WELCOME
_
Notes: to make it more plausible that a Kasumi wasn't born, I moved
Nabiki and Akane's births up and changed a bit about their biology, as
well as their personality. So if you're not happy about the difference
in character, I'm sorry, but as the tag says 'alternate reality.'

Double post to FFIRC and FFML, I hope to hear your comments soon!
Join FFIRC!

Without a nurturing presence or vitality of Kasumi, would they be as
harsh as the next teenager?

Comment are welcome.

A Colliding SYmphonies production
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RYOUGAECHO@ABRAXIS.COM