here ya go, final version unless I get some massive C and C
Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma 1/2 or any of the characters in Ranma
1/2, I am just playing with them.
By the pool of the Drowned Sensei, part one
by
John-Martin Lotz
The steps up to the Tendo Dojo were miles high
and tens of miles long, there was a spotlight
at the top shining on me. A crowd of millions
was watching me and I knew that there was gallows
at the top. I smiled to myself as the vision of
a bad historical film popped into my head. This
was Nerima Ward, in twentieth century Japan, and
I was under some kind of weird curse. Shaking my
head to clear it of the images, I walked up the
few steps that separated the real dojo from the
street, and me, from the young woman who had been
standing by the door watching my wool gathering.
"May I help you?"
"Yes . . . Is there a man, I mean boy, I mean girl
. . . person named Ranma here?"
The young woman wiped her hands on her apron, and
tossed her long hair away from her face, smiled at
me, then asked in a quiet voice, the last question
that I expected to hear, "Excuse me, but are you
engaged to Ranma."
"Engaged?" My voice raised about an octave, then
I calmed, "NO. There is something we share, and
I believe that he can answer some questions."
She seemed about o speak again when a voice yelled
out behind her. "Ranma NO BAKA, really try and spar
with me. Please just try and hit me."
"I told ya, I don't hit girls! Even uncute tomboys."
"Ranma, you have a guest." she called out to the
combatants, who came to a halt looking at me
She looked at me as I reviewed our conversation.
"I apologize for not giving my name earlier, I am
Kiratso Tomoe "
She bowed to me, "Tendo Kasumi, and this is my sister
Akane, and this is Ranma" indicating the dark haired
girl and the red headed one I was seeking in turn.
The red headed girl smirked at me, "Never seen you
before. You looked ready to mad back then. Let me
guess, Pop pissed you or your family off, and now you
want to kill me. Right?"
Her voice was pleasant and completely unafraid, actually
more amused sounding.
She circled me, ending up in front of me again "I really
don't like to hit girls, especially since you are no fighter.
It wouldn't be fair, Nabiki could probably take you."
Now she really sounded amused.
I took a step back, that first question hadn't been the
last question I had expected -- this one surely was,
I had no idea how meeting this Ranma person would be,
but this was NOT it!! Still I had to know the answers
to my questions."
I looked at the sign advising challengers to bloody
hand to hand combat to go around to the back gate and
raised my eyebrow at the young women, "My god, she's
serious, what have I gotten myself into?"
I handed Kasumi the bag containing a bottle of J&B scotch
I had brought, then studied Ranma -- who was, in turn,
studying me, "Why did you want to see me?"
I sighed and knelt down to reach into my handbag, "It's
easier to show then describe." I pulled out two thermoses
of water, one hot and the other cold.
"Jusenkyo," he breathed, watching the steam rise.
Yes, he was the one. I poured the cold water over my head,
and . . . changed. In that other form, I looked up into
Ranma's eyes and started to smile. That smile froze,
just like her eyes as she breathed, "You bastard!"
She screamed again, "You! . . . You're!!" and dove at me.
I didn't think, I didn't have the time. I just reacted.
Before I has fully aware she was attacking me, I found
myself one my feet, fending off a flurry of punches, then
suddenly in a courtyard, then 30 feet in the air, slapping
Ranma backwards into a koi pond.
"Oh my." I heard Kasumi say as she handed me the hot
thermos and I reverted to my real self. Just about then
Ranma struggled out of the water and headed toward me. Next,
I found Kasumi between us. "Ranma, stop!." Ranma halted and
she handed him the rest of my thermos, which she had grabbed
from me.
I cinched my disarrayed kimono tighter as Kisumi continued,
"Ranma, 'hot' water changed her into a girl, 'cold' changed
her into that man."
Ranma, now male, put down the rest of the hot water, and
stood there shaking, and I had to ask, "Ranma, whose body
is this, Obviously you know it."
He looked half ready to hit and half to cry as he said,
"It's my father's and it's dead." He spun away from Kasumi
and stalked off.
Before he got two steps, he halted and not facing me he
started talking, no longer the confidant self assured person
who had ask me if I were out to kill him. "I lost control,
I apologize. You see, last time, I saw that body, I buried it."
I could see Akane, hands over her mouth, collapse against a
man who hurried out of the main part of the house. Another
girl hurried up, no doubt drawn by the noise of the short fight.
"How did you trace me here?" he asked.
"With all due respect, tracking an, uhm, well built, red headed,
martial artist across China to Japan is not really all that hard."
He snorted at that.
"Actually, the crazy guy who pulled me out of the pool told
me that the person whose body I at times wear was accompanied
by a young man who fell into the pool of the drowned young girl.
He described both forms to me."
He snorted again, presumably at my attempt at delicacy.
"Please, how is it that this body is so good at fighting. It reacts
before I can think. It also is not very popular."
Everyone was staring at me, mostly, and Ranma, some, as I continued.
"I spent a lot of time during these past three months in this body.
It's a lot safer being a man than a girl if you are crossing
China alone."
The other girl who had shown up, didn't ask the obvious, why a lone
girl was in back country of China. I would have hated to start off
lying to them too early.
Instead, picking up the discarded bag with the bottle of Scotch, she
peered inside, quirked an eyebrow, and asked, "Not popular?"
"Yeah, the Abbot of the Wudong Monastery threw a dead cat at me."
Ranma shuddered.
"And a number of shop owners demanded payment. I worked some of the
debts off and the rest, I'll send them when I get it."
Now he was definitely smiling, "How many of them collapsed of the
shock?"
There was a brief pause, then he continued, "When I buried my father,
there was a post card in his pocket, addressed here. Tendo-san said
I was to marry one of daughters. Do you know anything about it?"
I shook my head.
"No, I seem to have some of the reflexes that your
father had, none of the memories."
end part one
jml
John-Martin Lotz, MCP
johnl@tomatoweb.com