Chapter Text
It was another quiet day in the Furinkan neighborhood of Nerima Ward, Tokyo. Even though the weather had suddenly turned dreary, Tokiko was still having a lovely day out and about with her boyfriend, Keisuke. The two had just finished eating lunch, and were now walking down a busy street to go see a movie; Keisuke had thankfully brought an umbrella and was holding it above Tokiko to make sure she and her new pink dress didn’t get wet from the rain. A little bit of wet weather wasn’t going to get Tokiko down, and she was certain nothing could put a damper on her perfect date.
That was, until the giant panda showed up.
Shortly after the rain began, Tokiko had overheard a passerby saying that someone had spotted a panda roaming the streets of Nerima, but she was sure this was just some ridiculous rumor. Nothing ever happened in Furinkan, and so long as you stayed away from the high school, it was a quiet, boring neighborhood.
However, this perception was shattered when Tokiko and Keisuke saw a short girl with bright red hair skidding out of an alleyway, pursued by none other than an enormous panda. She gasped in surprise, and squeezed Keisuke’s hand tightly as they both held on to their umbrella.
“It’s a panda!” a man cried out, as the other people on the block turned to witness this most unusual sight. Everyone took alarm and stood back, save for a little girl carrying a balloon shaped like the animal in question, who instead smiled with delight.
The red-haired girl took a defensive stance, staring down the massive animal in front of her. “Your move,” she said to the beast. The panda took several swipes at her with its claws.
“Omigosh, Keisuke! That panda is attacking that girl!” Tokiko quietly exclaimed to her boyfriend. “What do we do?”
The red-haired girl dodged the panda’s attacks. “Well I still say the whole thing sucks!” she said as she continued to avoid the animal’s sharp claws. “Picking my fiancee for me without even asking!” She dodged another blow and then grabbed the panda’s forelimb, throwing the massive animal over her shoulder and into a sign.
“I dunno, Tokiko, she seems to have it handled,” Keisuke said to his girlfriend, equally perplexed at the sight of this deceptively strong young girl.
The panda fell to the ground, knocking over the sign as it slumped over. The girl grabbed her large traveling pack from the ground as she caught her breath. “I’m going back to China now, so suck on that old man!” she said as she slung the pack over her shoulder and began to walk away from the scene.
“Does she…..know that panda?” Tokiko asked her boyfriend, to which he replied with a shrug.
"Why wouldn’t she take the panda back to China with her? Isn’t that where they come from?” Keisuke asked rhetorically.
The rain let up as the mysterious red-haired girl walked down the street, her bare feet splish-splashing on the wet pavement. As her eyes were closed in frustration, she did not notice the panda getting back up behind her. It grabbed the sign it had knocked over, and smashed it into the back of the girl’s head. She fell over unconscious, and the panda jammed its improvised weapon into the street with such force that it cracked the concrete beneath it. The panda swung the girl over its shoulder, and growled fiercely at the crowd around it, who all backed away in terror. The dangerous animal slowly walked away with its hostage.
“Okay, maybe she doesn’t have it handled,” Keisuke said to Tokiko. He looked down at his girlfriend, only to notice she was no longer at his side. Instead, Tokiko had run over to a food vendor across the street.
“Hey, we have to call someone to help that girl! Do you have a phone I can borrow?” Tokiko asked. The vendor, coming out of shock at what he had just seen, nodded and handed Tokiko a phone handset hanging from the wall next to him. Tokiko took the phone and dialed a number. She spun around to watch the panda leaving the scene of the attack, the phone cord wrapping around her as she nervously fiddled with it. She waited for many tense seconds before someone picked up on the other line.
“Hello, police? We need animal control! A giant panda must have escaped from the zoo, and it just attacked a girl! They’re heading for the dojo in Furinkan right now!”
“Fiance?”
Soun Tendo, head of the Tendo School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, was seated at the dining table across from his three teenage daughters. His youngest daughter, Akane, had just reacted in surprise to an important piece of news Soun had for his family.
“Yes, the son of a very good friend of mine,” Sound replied. “His name is Ranma Saotome. If one of you girls were to marry him and carry on this training hall, then the Tendo family legacy would be secure.”
Akane was seated at the far end of her two sisters, Kasumi and Nabiki. Upon hearing that one of the three would be forced to marry a boy they had never met, she, understandably, grew very frustrated. “Hey! Wait a minute here! Don’t we get to have some say in who we’re going to marry?!”
Nabiki, the middle child of the three Tendo sisters, smirked and leaned over to Akane. “Maybe you should wait until you meet him. You never know, he may be really cute!”
Akane ignored her sister and looked off into the courtyard.
Nabiki returned to sitting upright and turned her attention to her father. “Right, daddy?”
Soun laughed heartily, and completely dodged Nabiki’s question. He fixed his eyes on a postcard he held in his hands with a panda on the reverse side. “He’ll be here any minute!” The Tendo patriarch stood up before his daughters. “Ranma and his father have been on a training mission. Recently they crossed into China.” He walked over to face the courtyard of the dojo.
“Ooh, China!” Nabiki chimed in.
Akane continued to avert her glance from the rest of her family. “So what, he hiked all the way to China, big deal,” she said sarcastically.
“Father, how old is this ‘Ranma,’” Kasumi, the eldest daughter asked.
“Is he cute?” Nabiki asked again.
“Younger men bore me,” Kasumi continued.
“Well what kind of guy is he?!?” Akane practically demanded to know.
Sound replied to all his daughters’ queries with more laughter, and then he finally gave a satisfying answer to all their questions.
“I have no idea.”
“......you don’t know?” Nabiki asked incredulously.
“I’ve never met him.” Soun said, his back turned to his daughters.
A moment of surprise silenced the three Tendo girls, as it hit them that one of the three would be forced into an eternal union with someone whom their father had never even laid eyes upon. The silence was broken when the Tendo family heard voices at the front of the dojo.
“Sounds like we have visitors,” Kasumi said.
“Ooh! It must be Ranma!” Nabiki said excitedly. She stood up and rushed to the front door.
Soun followed in tow. “Saotome, my friend! We’ve been waiting!”
“I hope that he’s older than me,” Kasumi said in a resigned tone. She and Akane both made their way to the hall where their sister and father had run.
Said sister and father immediately rounded the corner and ran back toward the common room, with fear in their expressions. Shortly after, Kasumi and Akane saw what they were running from: a giant panda, carrying a small person over its shoulder. The three Tendo sisters all stood close together, behind their father, in fear of this massive animal in their home.
“Come on, pop! You’re scarin’ ‘em spitless!” the tiny red-haired person protested from within the panda’s grasp.
“So father, this is your friend?” Kasumi asked Soun, who vigorously shook his head in denial.
“Oh, so this panda just decided to drop in, is that it daddy?” Nabiki added sarcastically. Soun continued to shake his head, sweating with anxiety.
The panda placed the redhead down in front of the Tendos. They all saw that they were shorter in stature than anyone else in the household. Soun looked to the person in front of him, noting the Chinese-style clothing, and pointed his finger toward them as the stranger looked away.
“Y…you wouldn’t be?”
“I’m Ranma Saotome,” they said shyly, fiddling with the pigtail that draped over their shoulder. “Sorry about this.”
Soun’s fear turned to joy. “At last, you’re here!” he said as he pulled Ranma in for a fatherly hug.
“Ooh, he is cute!” Nabiki said.
“I’m so glad you’re here!” Soun said as he did his best to crush the tiny redhead in his arms. Ranma squirmed as Soun hugged them for several seconds, their pigtail seemingly writhing in discomfort as he embraced them. This lasted until Soun noticed something….unexpected…about Ranma as hugged them. He gave Ranma another couple of squeezes to make sure his suspicions were accurate, before he pulled the redhead away from him. “Wha…..wha….wha….” Soun stammered in surprise.
Nabiki leaned in to get a closer look at Ranma, before she too noticed what Soun had been surprised to find: an ample pair of breasts on Ranma’s chest. She was surprised they had all missed them, considering their size. Nabiki poked at Ranma’s bust, before rubbing her hand on her left breast.
“Umm….could you please stop that,” Ranma asked, annoyed at being groped so thoroughly.
“Ranma’s not a boy, he’s a girl!” Nabiki exclaimed to her family.
“A…A girl?!” Soun said in shock. ‘Saotome clearly stated he had a son! How could Ranma be a girl?!’ Soun’s thoughts raced in his head, and he realized the plan he had been waiting 16 years to set in motion was ruined. He grew light-headed, and fainted.
“Father….” Kasumi said as he lost consciousness.
“Hey! Are you okay?!” Ranma shouted at Soun as she leaned over his unconscious body. She waved her hands in front of him, shook him violently, slapped him across the face, and even blew up a conveniently-placed paper bag and popped it above him, all to no avail. Soun Tendo was out cold.
“Oh, don’t worry about him, Ranma,” Kasumi said as she moved behind the red-haired girl. “Father does this sometimes when he gets overwhelmed; I’m sure he’ll be back to normal soon.”
“Well, serves him right for trying to pick one of our fiances!” Akane yelled. “Maybe next time he’ll think twice about making arrangements with someone he’s never met. Can you believe he didn’t even check to make sure Ranma was a boy before he tried to have her marry one of us!”
Ranma looked up to the angry girl across the hall from her. Her arms were crossed in front of her gi-clad chest, and she looked down at her unconscious father with the most contempt Ranma had ever seen in someone’s face. ‘Maybe now is a bad time to bring it up,’ Ranma thought to herself.
“It’s no matter now, father has fainted and we should tend to him until he wakes up,” Kasumi said. “Let’s move him inside to get him out of the sun. I’ll prepare a futon for him.”
Kasumi moved inside the house to get her father’s temporary resting place ready. Ranma sighed and stood up, and as she did she heard low growling from behind her. She turned her attention to the large panda everyone had seemingly forgotten about standing behind her.
“You!” Ranma hissed, pointing her finger to the animal. “Yer the reason all a’ this happened! Why’d ya have ta bring me here anyway! It only made all these nice people scared and confused!”
The panda growled, and it almost looked as if it took a fighting stance before Ranma, who did the same.
Nabiki prodded Ranma in the shoulder with her elbow. “Say, why do you have a panda with you, anyway? And where’s your dad? Isn’t he supposed to be with you, too?”
Ranma’s attention turned away from the giant panda standing before her, and she dropped her stance. “Oh! Um, well, ya see….” she stammered, stalling for time as she tried to think of something more convincing than the true answer to Nabiki’s questions. “He….he’s, uhh…” she looked down at the floor and rubbed her head anxiously.
If the panda could speak, it would have interjected. However, it could not, so instead it moved to take advantage of the redhead’s distracted state. But before it could strike, the front door to the dojo slammed open.
“This is Tokyo Metropolitan Police! We have a report of a wild animal on the premises! Is everyone here okay?!”
The three girls still in the hallway heard footsteps running down the hallway from the front of the residence, and then saw two police officers and several other uniformed men round the corner to meet them. The other men’s uniforms had patches that read “Nerima District Zoo,” and many of them were holding nets.
“There’s the animal!” one of the officers shouted as he pointed toward the panda. “Look out, it’s about to attack!”
“Look! It’s already hurt that man on the ground!” the other officer shouted, gesturing to Soun.
“Tranq it!” the leader of the uniformed men shouted. Another held up a rifle, and fired two shots at the panda. The three girls, and the panda, all winced at the sound of shooting, but when they opened their eyes, they saw two darts sticking out of the panda’s abdomen. The panda snorted, and took steps toward the group in the corner of the hallway, raising its claws as if it were about to strike. The man with the rifle fired two more darts into the panda, and it stopped in its tracks. It wobbled for a moment, and then collapsed.
“I take it that’s one of yours?” One of the officers asked one of the men in the group.
“I mean, I guess it is, that would make sense,” the zookeeper replied. “Though I didn’t think our panda exhibit was going to open until next year…”
“No matter,” the head zookeeper said. “We’ll take it back with us and sort it out there. Pandas are highly endangered and we need to make sure it’s properly taken care of. Besides, these people here have been through enough today.”
The people in question all blinked in surprise. Kasumi peeked her head out from the kitchen. “I heard shouting! Is something going on out there?” she asked loudly.
“It’s nothing sister dear,” Nabiki replied. “The zoo is just taking their panda back, apparently.”
“Oh! I suppose that explains where that panda came from!” Kasumi replied. “Let me know if you need me for anything!” The eldest Tendo sister returned to preparing a hot washcloth for her father’s head.
“Ma’am! Are you alright!” one of the police officers came rushing over to Ranma now that she was out of harm’s way. “A woman called in and reported that someone matching your description had been attacked by this panda. Do you need medical attention?”
Ranma snapped back to reality and shook her head. “Who, me? No, I’m okay. I’m tougher than I look!”
“Well, medics are on standby if you need any first aid. What about him?” the officer gestured toward Soun, still out cold in spite of the commotion.
“Oh, don’t worry about Daddy,” Nabiki interjected. “The big scary bear didn’t get him, he’s just prone to fainting when he gets scared. Now, about compensation for damages….” Nabiki nudged the officer away from the scene.
Ranma turned to see the zookeepers beginning to move the unconscious giant panda. One man had grabbed each of the panda’s limbs and they were preparing to take the animal outside.
“Wait! Where are you taking him?” Ranma called out to the uniformed men around the panda.
“Hmm? Oh, the panda! We’re taking him back to the Nerima Zoo, where we work,” one of the men replied. “I don’t remember us having a panda, but he must have escaped from our facility. I mean, where else would a panda come from in this neighborhood?!”
“But he…” Ranma started, more quietly this time.
“I understand your concern. Pandas are highly endangered, and it would be a tragedy to lose even one,” the zookeeper continued. “But don’t worry little lady, we’ll make sure this big guy is taken care of. Alright everyone, lift on three. One, two…”
Ranma watched the zoo employees as they began to drag the panda away. She knew she should stop them, to tell them the truth about why there was a panda here in Tokyo. That she should come clean to the Tendos and try to explain the chaos that had brought her and the panda into their lives so suddenly. But, as she watched the zookeepers struggle to haul away the animal, she didn’t speak up, even though she felt guilty in her silence.
‘Maybe this’ll teach the old man not to mess with other peoples’ lives,’ Ranma thought to herself. ‘Maybe,’ she thought, ‘this might be a nice change a’ pace.’
Ranma’s thoughts were interrupted by a tapping on her shoulder. She turned her head, and saw the girl in the gi behind her. Even though she had looked so intense just a few minutes before, Ranma saw her expression had softened quite a bit.
“Hey, are you okay? You look kind of distraught,” the long-haired girl asked.
“O…oh! I’m fine! I promise!” Ranma exclaimed. “But thanks for checkin’ in on me though.”
“Of course!” the other girl replied with a smile. “What a weird afternoon it turned out to be, huh? I’m Akane, by the way!”
Ranma turned around and hurriedly bowed slightly. “I’m Ranma Saotome! Though, uh, you already knew that, heh.”
The two laughed together.
“Ugh, I’m sorry my dad dragged you into this whole engagement mess,” Akane said. “He doesn’t always think before he agrees to do something.”
“Hey, it’s okay!” Ranma replied. “My idiot pop’s the same way. Even though he’s, uh, not here right now. Sorry about all a’ the trouble I caused.”
“It’s neither of our faults, really. Who knows what goes through old mens’ heads when they come up with a scheme,” Akane replied before the two started laughing again. “Anyway,” she continued after they had finished giggling, “now that it’s obvious that the whole engagement thing can’t happen anymore because we’re both girls, do you wanna be friends?”
Ranma looked at the girl standing in front of her, as she smiled at her with her eyes closed. Ranma knew this was all wrong. She wasn’t some teenage girl looking for friends; she was a warrior, a world-class martial artist. She wasn’t even a……she was actually….she was…
She was strangely happy to have someone want to be her friend.
Ranma cocked her head to the side and smiled back to Akane. “Sure, I’d love to!”