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The FFML Refugee List
This chapter hints at Ranma's perception of the wish, and that not
everything is as it appears to be. The next chapter will deal with Akane's
perception of gods, among other things. ^_^
Disclaimer time: Rumiko Takahashi, Shogagukan, Kitty and Viz Communications
own Ranma 1/2. Kosuke Fujishima, Dark Horse Comics and Studio Proteus own
Oh! My Goddess (Ah! Megami-sama).
--------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------
The Belle-ken
Chapter 1
"Hello, Akane, Nabiki," Ranma greeted the pair of girls, as he descended the
stairs ad entered the living room. "Greetings, Mr. Tendo."
"Hello, Son!" Soun exclaimed, tears running down his cheeks. "You make an
old man's heart weep with joy!"
"Excuse me, Mr. Tendo, but I am not your son. In fact, I'm much older than
you."
Ranma sighed, when he noticed that the Tendo patriarch had a mythical
ability of only hearing what pleased him. Deciding not to grieve over it, he
smiled at Kasumi as she entered the living room from the kitchen, carrying
breakfast.
"Let me help you with that, Kasumi dear," the pigtailed boy offered,
springing into action before the eldest Tendo had a chance to respond.
Freeing the bowls of miso soup from Kasumi's hands, Ranma made a bouquet of
orchids appear in them.
'How dare that no-good, perverted god flirt with my sister?!' Akane thought
angrily, hefting the table and trying to clobber Ranma's head with it.
Nabiki winced, hoping that Kasumi had enough food in the kitchen to replace
what their younger sister was about to destroy. And then, she found herself
staring at her own bowl of soup. Quickly surveying her surroundings, the
middle Tendo daughter noticed that everyone was seated at the table, and
that Ranma's food was already gone.
"Showing off again?" she asked with a smirk.
"Nah, just hungry," Ranma replied, sighing contentedly. "Kasumi's food
tastes even better than it smells, if that's possible."
Kasumi blushed at the compliment, mumbling "Thank you" in reply.
"Have you no shame?! How dare you still flirt with my sister?!" Akane
yelled, prepared to teach the upstart pervert that somehow forced his way
into their lives a lesson he won't forget.
"Akane," Nabiki said sternly, gripping Akane's right hand firmly. "It's too
early in the morning for an anger tantrum. Besides, I haven't eaten yet."
Grumbling, Akane settled down, but didn't try to punish Ranma anymore.
Nabiki was a dangerous enemy to have, and she wasn't about to risk
estranging her over a stupid boy.
"So, son, do you do kempo?" Soun asked, putting his newspaper aside. "You
are going to take over the dojo when you marry Akane, after all."
"I am?" Ranma asked, blinking. Then, he realized what the man said to him.
"Hey, there's no way we're going to get married!" both Ranma and Akane
shouted at the same time, glaring at each other.
Nabiki's mouth curved into a smile.
"Ranma probably doesn't know how to fight, daddy. He has power over orchids,
after all."
Ranma practically glowed, giving Nabiki a baleful gaze.
"And what's that supposed to mean, huh? Everyone's constantly putting me
down, whether it's the orchids, or my angel... I can't take it anymore!"
"Oh my, does it mean you're a fighter?"
"Well, not really. I studied martial arts for a few centuries to teach
everyone who teased me a lesson. Calling me a pansy just 'cause I control
flowers..."
Ranma's words descended into grumbling, and he pouted. The sight almost made
Nabiki laugh out loud.
"Why didn't you defend yourself against Akane, then, instead of stopping
time?" Kasumi asked, getting everyone's attention.
Ranma mumbled something unintelligible.
"What was that, Ranma-kun?" the eldest Tendo asked.
"I said it was all because of the Ultimate Force. Akane's still my client,
and I can't really attack her without some serious consequences. Since
stopping time doesn't have to be person-oriented, I can get away with it, if
I do it right."
"Right, so that's why you froze all of us instead of just Akane," Nabiki
said out loud, nodding.
"Well, yeah," Ranma replied, shrugging. "Trust me, the results of an
Ultimate Force on the warpath aren't pretty."
"I can imagine," Nabiki said dryly.
Looking at her watch, she sighed, and finished her breakfast. Putting the
soup bowl down, she thanked Kasumi for the food and got up from the table.
"Coming, Ranma?" Nabiki asked him, picking up her bookbag.
"Coming where?" the god asked in return, blinking owlishly.
"To school, you idiot!" Akane yelled, moving past him.
Realization dawned upon Ranma, and he started waving his hands rapidly.
"No! Nononono! Look, I'm not even registered..."
"I already took care of that," Nabiki said offhandedly.
"I... I already know everything they're teaching there!"
Nabiki shrugged.
"Who goes to school to study, Ranma-baby?"
"But... but! Aww... I don't wanna go to school!"
"Would you rather stay here with Daddy?"
Ranma blinked, and looked between Nabiki and Soun. He frowned.
There was, of course, a third option. He could go and see Belldandy, and
then they could... they could... have a party! Yes, a party! And then...
"Hey, Ranma... Ranma? Ranma!"
"You want to go and see a movie, Belldandy?"
Rolling her eyes, Nabiki walked out of the door. Without turning around, she
offered the god to just catch up to her if he changed his mind.
--------------------------------------------------
"And who might you be, Peasant?" Kuno asked arrogantly, posing.
"The name's Ranma, Patron of Orchids and G..."
Nabiki quickly covered Ranma's mouth, and told her classmate that Ranma was
staying with them for a while. The resulting battle destroyed half of the
schoolyard, before Kuno went down.
Seeing all the destroyed flora almost made Ranma cry.
'If Belldandy were here, she'd probably faint,' he thought dejectedly.
Ignoring the rain that started, Ranma cast his own version of the basic
regeneration and restoration spell. Smiling gently at the revived trees, the
pigtailed god proceeded into the school building.
Once Ranma got inside, he and his clothes glowed for a few moments, drying
the water almost instantly. Shaking his head at the troubles one had to
endure just to get to school these days in Japan, Ranma walked into his
classroom and introduced himself.
The girls only sighed and nodded collectively when he mentioned that he was
a god, while the boys all gave him the evil eye. Shrugging, he waved at
everyone, and took his proffered seat, which was, incidentally, right next
to Akane.
"Did you have to show off again?" she hissed.
"Oro?"
"Don't you 'oro' me, you idiot! Why did you say all those things about being
a god?"
Although peeved at being called names for no good reason, Ranma managed to
stop his mouth before it could go on autopilot and retaliate in kind.
"Because I am a god. We don't lie."
"Hmph!"
Still annoyed, Akane turned away from Ranma, purposely ignoring him for the
rest of the day.
Nabiki didn't seem to mind that fact, as she all but dragged Ranma to have
lunch with her, basking in the jealous glares she got from all the girls at
the schoolyard.
"So, Ranma-chan..."
"Umm, please call me Ranma," the pigtailed boy corrected her. Something
about that name just sent shivers down his spine for some reason.
Nabiki shrugged and smiled at him, not unlike a cat.
"Like I was saying, Ranma... you believe you are stuck here on Earth because
you Akane's wish somehow interacted with your thoughts?"
Ranma shrugged, grabbing a bit from his sandwich.
"I dunno, really. That's how it seems to me. I admit that there are worst
things than being stuck with your sister, so Yggdrasil must've messed up or
something."
"How nice of you to think of my sister in that way," Nabiki said with a
smirk.
Ranma frowned, resting his hands in his lap and looking down to stare at
them.
"That didn't come out quite right, and I'm sorry. I know Akane's a good
person deep down... heck, the system said she deserved a wish, right? That
alone must mean she has a lot of good traits."
"But she doesn't hold a candle to your Belldandy, does she?"
"Belldandy... she is the embodiment of perfection. No one holds a candle to
her; no one can. There is not a being in this world that is worthy of her."
The pigtailed boy sighed deeply, and continued staring down. Nabiki left him
alone, satisfied with the answers she had gotten for the time being.
Something seemed extremely fishy to her about the entire wish, but she
figured that they would all find out what that is in due time. Since it
concerned Ranma himself - that was the only thing she was sure about, due to
the wording of Akane's wish - Nabiki decided not to get too involved in
divine affairs.
'If worse comes to worse, he's not really family,' she thought to herself,
trying to ignore how cold-hearted that sounded.
--------------------------------------------------
Running all the way home, Akane arrived a good ten minutes before Nabiki or
Ranma. Deciding to relax from her taxing day, she turned on the television.
However, she was not prepared to se a pair of shapely, bronze legs emerge
from the screen.
"Who are you?" she asked, subconsciously tightening her hold on her bookbag.
Akane was pretty worked up after spending the entire day while trying to
avoid answering questions about Ranma. Couldn't those idiots get a life? So
what if he could take on Kuno, or somehow magically fix all of the damage...
or that he called himself a god. Who cared about that?
But most of all, what really got under Akane's skin was that his girl side
was a real knockout. While handsome in his real form and fairly popular at
Furinkan for his first day there, she had a real problem of accepting that a
guy could make a cuter girl than she... even if that guy was a god. It just
wasn't fair! And now, it seemed that more beautiful women followed him!
'He better not be inviting his girlfriends to my house...' Akane thought
angrily.
The platinum-haired guest frowned for a moment, slightly put off by the fact
that the girl in front of her had just zoned off all of a sudden and was now
slowly choking her bookbag.
"I'm Urd, the Norn of the Past, but you just call the Goddess of Love!" she
announced finally, disregarding the other girl's actions with a mental
shrug. "Is Ranma here?"
"How dare that... that PERVERT!" Akane yelled, tearing the bookbag into two
halves and reaching for the table. She had been right all along! Her
unfaithful fiance - not that she wanted him in the first place - did invite
his girlfriends to her house!
Urd had a chance to blink in confusion, before her world went dark.
--------------------------------------------------
"So, you came to visit me, Urd?" Ranma asked her, wincing sympathetically
when the goddess stirred and moved the wet towel from her forehead.
"Yeah... I figured I'd give you a hand down here on Midgard. Besides..."
"You thought it'd be fun, didn't you?" Ranma finished with a smile on his
lips.
Urd sighed.
"I didn't expect to be greeted by a..."
"Table?"
Urd sat up, groaning, and pressed the wet towel back to her forehead.
"I didn't know you were psychic, Ranma," she remarked, looking at him.
"Nah, I just got the same greeting," Ranma said offhandedly.
"Really? No bullshit?"
"Urd, you swear like a demon," Ranma said, chuckling. "But yeah, really."
"Maybe it's the local custom or something," Urd ventured thoughtfully.
"Could be," Ranma agreed. "On my first day at school, I had to fight this
incredibly resilient kendoist just to get inside."
Urd summarized the situation in one word, "Weird".
Offering the goddess his hand, Ranma helped her to her feet. She took a step
forward, before stumbling and holding onto his shoulder for support.
"I'm sorry about the disorientation you're feeling, Urd," Ranma said
remorsefully. "Unfortunately, I was never that good in healing spells for
either mortals or gods, and my magic's been taxed already after I had to fix
the damage that idiot kendoist caused at school... I just don't have the
mana for the really powerful stuff."
"That's alright, Ranma. I know you did your best, and I'm feeling much
better already," Urd reassured him.
"In that case..."
Ranma handed the goddess an orchid.
"Here's a little something... just for you. A beautiful flower, for a
beautiful goddess."
Blushing slightly, Urd took the proffered flower.
"You know, Ranma, that if you talked around Belldandy like that, she'd
either slap you or go out with you."
"G-Go out with me? Belldandy? R-Really?"
Ranma went to sigh excitedly in a corner of the room, occasionally talking
with one of the walls. Seeing this, Urd slapped her forehead in disgust,
immediately regretting that act as the pain registered.
'I see we still have a long way to go... but I am not called the Goddess of
Love for nothing!'
--------------------------------------------------
End of Chapter 1.
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