I wonder how many of you can figure out what's going on. :)
C&C would be appreciated, btw.
DA/R
Dark Alpha
------
Like Water for Ranma and Akane
Or
The Arienniichuan
Nooo, not the DISCLAIMERS! Ranma 1/2 and its associated
characters belongs to Rumiko Takasahi. I'm merely borrowing
them. I cannot be held liable for missing zeros and ones that
result in the transfer between clients, however.
Sorry, too late. ;)
------
Ranma sighed as he let his body soak in the hot furo, royally
confused by his own actions. Just few minutes ago, he had been
all over that girl like a love-sick puppy! He couldn't stop
hugging and kissing her. He felt sickened by the memory of it
and shook his head to clear his thoughts. They drifted away.
He heard the door slide open behind him and he spun around as
he stood up to face the person. And his eyes bulged at the sight
of a beautiful and shapely young girl's n-naked body!
Akane giggled at Ranma's reaction, who was gawking at her.
Partly to his relief and disappointment, she held a small towel
over her hips. He then remembered his passionate kissing with
the same girl.
"Oh, don't be so embarrassed, Ranma! We're practically
engaged, after all! It's perfectly okay with if you look at my
body." She smiled sweetly and walked over to a wooden tub of
cold water. Teasingly, she knelt down, using her legs and arms
to hide her private parts, having discarded the towel at Ranma's
head.
Ranma yanked the towel off and stared, entranced, as Akane
splashed herself with cold water. He watched every motion as she
slowly washed parts of her body with soap, lingering longest at
her chest and abdomen with extreme measures taken in maintaining
their coverage.
"Ooo, cold!" Akane remarked as she rinsed herself off with
another bowl of water. Ranma gulped as he was being turned on
again.
She quickly slid (or more accurately, pounced) into the warm
tub beside Ranma, still paralyzed with shock and fear. She
giggled once more again and slid her shapely legs around him,
her arms around his neck and...
Wait a minute.
She blinked as she looked into startled eyes of a boy.
A boy. A naked one at that, and she realized belatedly that
she was naked as well. And she was cuddling him bit _too_
passionately. In a steaming furo. And she was just about to kiss
him...
In an instant, a scream of "PERVERT!" echoed throughout the
house.
- - - -
To say that Nabiki was surprised was an understatement. Less
than an hour ago, very many things had surprised her. When you
consider the fact that she was Nabiki Tendo, it was no easy
feat.
First was the announcement of the unexpected engagement to a
Ranma Saotome. Apparently her Daddy had made an agreement with
Genma Saotome, his friend, sometime before she was born, that
they would engage one of Soun's daughters to his son, and
thereby fulfilling their dream of uniting Anything-Goes School.
She didn't want to get married.
Their unexpected visitors were next; a _panda_ and a boy. Why
would a panda want to visit them? The boy was a mystery enough,
since she had never met him before. Her Daddy DID try and ask
him for him, but before he could answer, came the _third_
surprise of the day.
Akane had just come up from behind and they saw each other.
One second they were staring at each other as if they had never
met before (which they never did), and the next they were making
out with a such passion that caused even Kasumi to blush. They
were _french-kissing_, for Kami's sake! And in public too!
None of this made any sense to her. Why would Akane, a boy-
hater and breaker of hearts, be smooching with a boy (which,
even she had to admit was cute-looking in a way, with a cute
bod, with cute... STOP IT!), and she didn't even have a chance
to make any impression on him!?
The kissing session had lasted for quite some time, and
nobody had even moved an inch. She had just gaped at the...
couple? It was not until Akane had suggested that the boy take a
bath (something about him being filthy), she had snapped into
reality. The cute boy agreed and left with Akane as his guide.
She had wondered then; Just what was going on?!
Ten minutes later, a scream of "PERVERT!" startled everyone,
and Nabiki had quickly rushed to the bathroom, only she was not
prepared for a sight of Akane trying to throttle a boy
underwater in the furo. And they both were naked.
Acting quickly, she jumped into the furo (and ruining her
favorite shirt) and wrestled angry Akane's hold off the now-
unconscious boy.
"I'M GONNA KILL THE PERVERT! I'M GONNA GET HIM!" Akane
screamed as she struggled against Nabiki's hold. Unfortunately,
as she strained to pull her sister out of the furo, she slipped
on a puddle of water, and crashed into a nearby pail of water.
"Wah, COLD!" Startled by the temperature, Akane ceased her
struggle, just as the rest of Tendos and a bald man burst into
the bathroom. Kasumi blushed at the sight of naked boy, while
the bald man slapped his hands against their forehead.
"What's going on here?" Soun demanded.
"Daddy!" Akane quickly tried to cover herself as best as she
could with her arms. "I'm taking a bath!"
"With a boy?" Nabiki remarked.
"'With a boy...?' Oh! You must mean Ran--"
A splash of hot water splashed them both, interrupting
Akane's words. The bald man had jumped into the furo and was now
pulling a pigtailed boy above the water level. "I'm sorry, but
will you please spare us few minutes to get proper?"
"Yes, yes." Soun nodded in agreement and quickly pulled both
Akane and Nabiki before they could protest a word, sliding the
door shut behind him.
"What's going on, Daddy? Who are these people?" Nabiki
demanded.
Soun chuckled. "Why, those two were the people we've been
expecting. My best friend Genma and his son..."
"I don't care about them," Akane retorted angrily, having
wrapped a large towel around herself to cover her modesty. "What
I want to know is WHAT DID THAT BOY DO TO ME?!"
"Um," Soun sweatdropped at Akane's outburst. Quickly, he went
to his knees and was groveling at the feet of his daughter,
"Please forgive your old miserable father! I didn't mean to do
it- Kasumi was supposed to be the one--"
"What about me?" Kasumi stepped into the conversation. "What
am I supposed to be?"
Realizing his slip, Soun laughed unconvincingly, "Oh, I meant
Kasumi was supposed to buy more rice for our new guests!"
Three girls looked at their father doubtfully, but before
they could respond, the door to bathroom slid open to reveal a
wet boy. He looked from Kasumi to Nabiki, and finally to an
angry Akane, and brought his hand behind his head. "Um, I'm
Ranma Saotome. Sorry 'bout this."
- - - -
"'Spring of Drowned Lovers'?" Nabiki repeated doubtfully. "No
way. That's got to be the lamest excuse I've heard from you,
Daddy. Nobody's stupid enough to believe that. Besides, they're
glaring at each other, and if the looks could kill, they
would've died an hour ago." She replied simply as she gestured
to Ranma and Akane having a staring contest with scowling
expressions on their faces.
It had taken both families almost two hours to coax their
simmering scions out of their mood for a proper greeting. Their
kids were obviously angry over the bathroom incident, but in
both fathers' opinions, they had more important matters to deal
with.
Namely, saving their skins.
"But it's true!" Soun protested. He turned to Genma, "Help me
here, my friend!"
"It's true, Nabiki--"
"Don't act so familiar with me," she snapped at Genma. "You
can call me Ms. Tendo like everybody else."
"--Ms. Tendo, let me tell you a wonderful story... a story of
a father and son." Genma quickly sat down. He slapped his son's
back cheerfully, "This is my son, Ranma..."
"It's NOT a 'wonderful' story!"
"Hush, son! Don't spoil your father's happiness!"
Ranma merely grumbled as he faded into the background,
everyone's attention now riveted upon the bald man.
Genma cleared his throat, "What I am about to tell you is a
_true_ story, and it has a wonderful ending for everyone in it.
But first, I should show you something..."
Before himself, he held a glass of cold water in his hand.
"Observe," Genma said simply as he poured it over his son.
The girls blinked as something about the boy changed abruptly.
Every fiber of his body suddenly relaxed as if some unseen hand
had switched his power-on button off.
An instant later, Ranma's arms were around Akane's body,
nuzzling her and making contented sounds. "You're so cute,
Akane. I love you..."
Akane stared at the boy around her blankly, as if not
comprehending what Ranma had just done. Except for Genma,
everyone stared at the speculate, mouths agape in shock.
Nabiki, though, whistled a little, suddenly green with envy.
The boy was practically radiating _passion_. Any normal girl
would have practically swooned in the heat. Her eyes twitched in
annoyance. She didn't need more evidence than what she had just
witnessed to know that this boy indeed was the Prize specimen
every girl would kill to win. She shook her head; the Dream Man
of about every girl was in front of her and Akane already had
claimed his heart? Gods were indeed cruel to her...
The eldest sister sighed almost contentedly. That was _so_
romantic! A boy confessing his undying love for another girl,
spilling all of his heart onto the her on the spot. Just
straight out of the romantic novels she would read every night
before going to bed... too bad he was too young for her, or she
would have nabbed him. Hmm, she probably would have done so
anyway if Akane hadn't gotten him first. Kasumi clasped her
hands under her cheek and marveled at the prize her sister had
won, "Akane, you're so lucky!"
And Akane? Her mind was a complete blank. This... BOY had
just confessed that he loved her. She had heard the words
before, said by hordes of boys, but none of them had truly meant
it. This... boy did, she could sense that Ranma had meant it.
She could feel his comforting presence covering her like a warm
blanket, dampening even her toughened defenses, threatening to
overwhelm her heavy resistance against boys. She felt... warm
and safe. She suddenly felt an urge to kiss Ranma passionately
on the spot. Any normal girl would have succumbed to the desire
in a heartbeat.
Akane, however, was anything but a normal girl. Snapped out
of her shock by Nabiki's whistling, she quickly became furious
as she tried to remove the offending _boy_ off her body. "WHAT
ARE YOU DOING, YOU PERVERT?! GET OFF ME!!"
She struggled to free herself from the deviant, but his grip
was simply too powerful. He was... like a snake. Every time she
twisted into a direction, Ranma would slither into another and
cut off her escape. What infuriated her even further was the
happy sounds he kept on making.
"Mmm, yes, you're so soft, and cute too..."
"Let go of me! Let go of me, you pervert!"
"Mmm. Mmm. I'm so happy that I've met you! Happy, happy!"
Genma cleared his throat, and everyone turned their attention
to him. Except for Ranma who was too busy basking in the warmth
of his love's affection. Akane, however, was too busy banging on
Ranma's head with her fists to pay any attention to anybody.
"As you can see, I have been training my son in the Art for
many years, to make him among the best. For years, I travelled
to many places to enlighten my ungrateful son in the Art, but I
wanted only to teach him nothing but the best, so I scoured for
special training grounds to further his skills."
"LET GO OF ME!" A metallic frying pan clanged off Ranma's
thick head repeatedly as Akane continued to hit her lover.
"Ah yes, it was not until two weeks ago when I came upon a
fortunate incident. I discovered about a mystical training
grounds known as Jusenkyo. I decided to take my son and train
there, to improve our skills. However, I had not anticipated,
ah, the true horror of the grounds."
"The horror?" Everyone echoed. Akane, ignored by the group,
continued to pummel Ranma's head, this time with an empty kettle
and adding more bumps to his head.
"According to the Guide who resided at the place, there are a
thousand pools, each bearing its own tragic curse. In the past,
many victims had drowned in them, and if, by any unfortunate
luck, some unlucky person happened to fall into one those pools,
he would be cursed to take the form of the being who had drowned
last in them. In the midst of our training session, I discovered
too late about the truth of the tale."
"So you mean Ranma fell into one of those springs?"
Genma shook his head, "No. Fortunately, who knows what worse
fates might have befallen him," he bemoaned. "No, he didn't fall
in; I pushed him into the pool." Genma replied broadly, as if he
had just unveiled his greatest plan. Which, in his opinion, it
was.
The girls stared at him in shock. Even Akane stared at the
old man, not responding to Ranma's passionate advances.
"W...why did you do that?" Nabiki finally spoke.
"To help solidify our promise, of course."
Nabiki turned to her father, "What promise, Daddy?"
"To join our families, what else?" Soun grinned. "We were
afraid that it wouldn't work, and that they might fight our
decision," and Nabiki simply pointed out that the pair in
question WERE still fighting, to which Soun simply ignored. "But
my friend Genma, here, had a BRILLIANT idea!"
Genma nodded. "When I found out about the fateful story of
Jusenkyo through a mishap, I realized that the Spring of Drowned
Lovers would help ensure that our promise to join our families
would be fulfilled--"
Nabiki quickly interjected, regaining her composure, "You
mentioned a 'mishap.' Does that mean you're cursed as well?"
The bald man sweated visibly, "Uhh, it's not important. Now
back to the story--" Any words he tried to speak quickly
degenerated into rough growling noises as he transformed into a
soaked panda.
Soun nodded thoughtfully as he held on to an empty glass, "So
you really are cursed, my friend!"
If the revelation of the effects of Lovers' curse had stunned
them, Genma's curse completely blew the girls away. To change
personality was one thing (and somewhat more believable), but to
be able to _physically_ change into an enormous waterlogged
panda was a different matter altogether.
Before either daughters could adjust to the new change, Soun
instantly picked up a steaming-hot kettle and poured its
contents over the mammal.
"OWOWOWOWOWOW," Genma yelped as he transformed back into a
fat, balding man, "Hot, hot!"
As Genma tried to shake off the excess boiling water off his
body, some of it splashed across Ranma and Akane, who were still
entangled in each other's bodies of arms and legs. Which was the
first thing Ranma saw the instant he regained his sanity.
"Aww, man, not aga--" was all the boy could say as he was cut
off by a large wooden table crashing atop his head as Akane had
finally put down the unusually amorous boy out for the count
under a large table.
"Hah! That'll teach the pervert for molesting me!" She
smirked, wiping her hands clean.
Something settled into Nabiki's stomach as she realized the
implications. No way, she thought, Daddy wouldn't do a such
thing... would he? She quickly grabbed another glass of cold
water and splashed it on her own sister, already anticipating
her response.
"What'd you do that for?!" Akane shook her head to shake off
excess water, then gasped at the prone body of her lover. She
quickly went to his side and used her strength to hurl the table
off Ranma and didn't notice that she had thrown the table
through the wall. "Ranma! Are you all right?!"
"Oww! Why'd ya do that, ya tomboy?" Ranma moaned as Akane
gathered him up into her arms.
"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you! Please forgive me!"
Too late, Ranma realized belatedly, Akane had ensnared him in
a Lover's Grip. He had witnessed the move often, but had
feverishly hoped that it would NEVER be attempted on him.
Incidentally, it was similar to a certain technique frequently
executed by Amazonian females he had met several times (and
avoided) during his training trip.
Once caught in the Lover's Grip, there were only two ways to
escape: by pushing the passionate female off your body, which
was unfortunately positioned in a such way that an attempt would
require a contact between hands and the female's breasts (and
any sane man would realize that this indeed was _not_ a wise
move for obvious reasons), or returning her affections in hopes
that she would eventually release you. Of course, this was in
many ways, _not_ considered a good idea either, since she would
be liable to increase her affection tenfold and leaving the
person with same choices he had earlier and running short on
air.
In sum, Ranma was damned either way.
Nabiki sighed in defeat as her visions of a new boyfriend
exploded in a puff of smoke in the sight of Akane cuddling
Ranma, who was currently trying his best to break free of the
crazed girl. Turning to her daddy, "You used the water on Akane,
didn't you." It was not a question.
Soun coughed uncomfortably. "Not really. I was trying for
Kasumi, but I missed and the water hit Akane instead." Nodding
in approval of the lovers before him, he mused, "Looks like it's
good thing I missed. They're SO perfect for each other!"
"Stop whining like a girl, Ranma!" Genma suddenly stood
before his son, splashing him with a glass of cold water. "You
should appreciate your good fortune!"
As Ranma snapped into a crystal-clear clarity, he realized
how right his father was; he was indeed the luckiest man in the
world to have a woman whom he loved with all his heart! He
abruptly ceased his resistance and met his fiance's eyes, his
eyes now glittering with happiness.
Nabiki returned her gaze back to the love-struck couple and
felt a heavy sensation growing in her stomach. This bode bad
news, she knew.
"Ohh, Akane..."
"Ohh, Ranma..."
Ten minutes later, Nabiki had quite enough of their sickening
public display of affection that she ran out of the room,
zeroing for the bathroom. Moments later, retching sounds
followed.
"How in the world did I deserve this?" she bemoaned an hour
later.
END
===---
Maybe.
Initially, this idea came to me more than a year and half ago,
but I didn't put much effort into it, only occasionally pausing
from my bigger works to add some bits to it until it was
finished. Mainly because comedy is not one of my strong traits.
It briefly made an appearance on ffirc, during one of its one-
hour challenges, and those who had participated had enjoyed it
tremendously.
Many thanks to the one who supplied me with the Chinese term for
'Spring of Drowned Lovers,' or Arienniichuan. However, I
unfortunately lost his name more than a year ago (although I'm
certain that he's still around on ffml - if you are, give me a
call and I'll set things right :).
C&C would be appreciated, I'd love to hear your opinion on this
piece of work. Flames can be directed elsewhere.
--- --- ---
DA/R
Dark Alpha
---AlphSailor@aol.com