Usagi blazed through the front door and up the stairs, and was in her room by the time the door closed. Kenji and Ikuko looked at each other, then Ikuko wryly shook her head. "I'll go get her," she told her husband, and headed for the stairs.
Kenji sighed and shook his head. It was just amazing, he mused, how fast and hyper-active Usagi was during the day, considering how impossible a time Ikuko had waking her up in time for school in the mornings.
As he heard a brief conversation occur above him, he considered his memory of Ranma's curse demonstration. Though they had been told about it, and indeed had seen pictures of both his forms, nothing had even come close to actually preparing them for seeing the abrupt and undeniably magical change sweep over their new boarder.
Somehow seeing it with his own eyes brought home to Kenji the real meaning of the stories they had been told about Ranma's home life, and the reactions he had experienced from various people as they had learned of his curse. He shuddered as he imagined experiencing such a change himself, especially as a teenager, when image was everything, and anyone that stood out was excluded by so many.
He was brought out of his remembering by the return of Ikuko down the stairs, followed by Usagi. Her black cat was not with her, and she looked a bit disturbed. Of course, he had no idea, no way of knowing that she was pondering the likelihood of the household's new member being another of the world's enemies that she had been fighting for so long.
He saw only that she looked pensive and far from her usual bright self. "Don't worry, Usagi-chan," Kenji said firmly. "Ranma may have some problems in his life right now, but he is an honorable young man. You will get to meet him soon, but first, we need to explain some things, some of which you will need to keep to yourself, and some of which you will need to convey to your friends. I am sure you will get along just fine." He allowed a small grin to cross his mouth, as he continued in a teasing tone, "After all, he cannot possibly annoy you more than Shingo does, right?"
Usagi laughed as she sat beside him.
---
Ranma sighed as he walked through the park nearest to his new home. He was still having difficulty believing that his new hosts had been so nice about his curse. Neither had called him a pervert or a freak, and they had not even made him change back and forth a hundred times. It was hard to believe everything was going so well, but he was anticipating difficulties shortly.
Kenji had suggested that he might want to step out, and give them some time to explain the new situation to their children. He could certainly picture how that was going to go. He had actually imagined that this might really be happening, that something in his life might not blow up in his face. When he learned that they had not informed their kids, he flashed back to his meeting with the Tendos. Yeah, this was going to fall apart real quick.
Seeing a water feature, a small pond with a tiny island in the center, he veered quickly away, hoping to avoid triggering his curse, only to bump into someone walking along the same path. He certainly would have sensed them and avoided the collision, had they not been carrying a drink.
"Oh, oh, I'm so sorry," the girl cried. Of course, it would be a girl, Ranma groused privately while accepting the girl's apologies. For one frightening moment Ranma was certain the girl was Usagi. She was certainly Japanese, yet had the same ridiculously long blonde hair Usagi had in the photos he had seen of her, though the hairstyle differed. That meant less than nothing, since he expected they probably changed their hairstyles at the drop of a hat.
She was not Usagi however, as she had managed to introduce herself a moment later as Aino Minako. That name was no better, though, as it reminded him of the warning he had been given about Usagi's friend who also had a cat, and Ranma looked nervously about, expecting one of the hideous little demons to pop up and attack him.
Of course, he was equally expecting cries of "Pervert!" but her litany of apology made it clear she had not seen the actual transformation. He would have been horrified to know that the only reason Minako had not seen his transformation was that she had been swept up in a daydream about herself and the handsome hunk she had been watching as he walked through the park.
He was also oblivious to the way Minako kept glancing around, looking and hoping for another glimpse of the hunk, and attributed the frisson of unholy dread that shivered its way up his spine to his fear of cats. That was one of the reasons that Ranma generally liked parks. Not only did the normally afford a bit more interpersonal space than the streets of Tokyo, they also generally had a fair number of dogs about, being walked or playing, and so were less likely to sport a collection of cats than the average alleyway or fencetop.
He, or rather she, had almost extricated herself from the social trap of apology and acceptance when a taller brunette came running up, and she had to wait through an explanation and another round of introductions, this time to Kino Makoto, he once again reluctantly gave the name of Ranko Ishida. It felt strange giving that name, and he almost slipped and used the name Saotome, which would have been insulting to the family that had accepted him.
When she finally managed to convince the girls that no harm had been done, that she was fine and not angry, and was finally watching them walk away, she was left to wonder exactly how it was that she was somehow on the hook for meeting them at some soda and arcade shop the next day.
Not wanting to tempt fate by returning to the house in feminine form, she found a food cart and cadged a glass of water and a skewer of sticky sweet rice balls. Once she was out of sight of the cart, she heated the water with her ki and returned to her male form. He promptly left the park, taking to the rooftops to sit and look at the park and think without the dangerous proximity to all the people walking around with drinks.
Unfortunately for Ranma, he had not been as unobserved in his transformation as he would have preferred. Artemis, the white Moon-cat currently watching him had been keeping an eye on Minako, and he had not been distracted by daydreams. He had observed the boy turn into a girl, though from his perspective it happened when Minako touched him, as though her touch had short-circuited her disguise.
He did not understand the significance of the water that Ranma purchased, or the part it played in his transformation. In th experience of the cat, a handome guy being the recipient of Minako's crush was already likely to end up an enemy. The first transformation could have been Minako inadvertantly purifying a victim, but when Ranma restored the disguise himself, he was instantly elevated to Dark General in Artemis' eyes.
Artemis slid away into the darkness, sighing to himself about the necessity of once more puncturing Minako's dreams. He had wished more than once that she would find someone to be happy with, but so far it seemed fate was against her. It was just lucky that obviously the Dark General had not recognized Sailors Venus and Jupiter. His leap to the rooftop clearly demonstrated that he did not need to transform to be dangerous. Unless, of course, the female to male was his Dark General transformation? Artemis doubted it. So far they had been pretty consistent in being uniformed.
Ranma sat while the sun slid down the sky, staring at the park and contemplating whether he would have a bed that night, or be back in the park sleeping in a tent. It would be normal for his life if Usagi and Shingo both decided they hated him and forced their parents to withdraw their welcome.
Finally he felt he had left it long enough. Usagi and Shingo had surely been home for at least an hour, and more likely for two. Sighing, but resigned to the inevitable, he returned to the Tsukino home. He was a little surprised when he reached the front door without having the curse activated.
He had no opportunity to stare at the door and mope, nor to knock. Ikuko had obviously been watching for his return. She flung the door open before he had quite reached it, and welcomed him in warmly.
Usagi had obviously been listening for his return as well, for she bounded down the stairs, her long pony tails streaming behind her from two little balls of hair on her head where it was gathered and bunched. She burst into a babbling speech as she approached, her face beaming a wide, welcoming smile the equal or better of Ikuko's, and Ranma felt a little stunned at the forceful bubbliness of her personality. She reminded him a little of the steamroller that was the skating princess Azusa Shiratori, though without the kleptomaniac French obsession, thankfully.
Ranma was unprepared for the enthusiastic welcome of a girl who already had her destined love, and so had no jealousy or fear of him or her. She was familiar with magic, something her parents did not know, so she was not freaked out by that aspect either. Best of all, between her age and her destined and committed relationship; on her part whether it was on Mamoru's or not. That he could act as a chaperone, meaning she might get to go on actual, proper date nights was the cherry on top, and where he had thought she might be resentful of having a minder, she was instead babbling delightedly.
He had apparently spent too much time out brooding before returning, so Shingo had been sent to bed without meeting him, which left a bit of lingering concern to color his sleep that night.
When he got up the next morning, he heard Ikuko calling up to Usagi. He got up and dressed quickly. He had understood enough the previous day to have caught that Usagi tended to sleep dangerously late and rush about in the mornings. Trying to bathe in the mornings would be a recipe for certain disaster. Heading downstairs, he found Shingo already up and eating breakfast at the table.
Shingo perked up on seeing Ranma. He was excited about having another boy around, someone who might want to play his video games with him, someone who would not always look down on him and what he liked.
Ranma was prepared for disgust, for envy, or jealousy, but he was not at all prepared for Shingo to call out, "Good morning, older brother!"
Ranma nearly tripped walking into the room at that, and it took him a moment before he managed to recover, and greet his new little brother. As soon as he sat down, Ikuko set a bowl of miso soup, a bowl of rice, and a plate of fish and pickles at his place. Ranma bowed in place in thanks, and saying the traditional before meal acknowledgement, mindful of his manners and his unwillingness to give offense, tucked in.
As he had only half-expected, he was given a bento after finishing, and told that the Ishida would meet him to take him to Juuban Municipal High School to complete his transfer.
He left the house at the same time as Shingo, even as he heard Usagi being yelled at by Ikuko for not getting ready.
Outside, he once again found a compact car waiting for him. He did not wait to be asked, and slid into the back seat. Riding a top the car was one thing when he was a girl and uncomfortable about getting into a small car with several men, but he did not want to make a show of his arrival at school. He had a chance here, and he was determined that when it blew up, at least it would not be because of what he had done.
Still, he fidgeted nervously as they drove, nervous at being in a confined space at the mercy of someone else's skill at driving. He felt more comfortable riding the roof, whether of a car or a train, where he could leap away if danger threatened.
No danger threatened, however, and the ride passed in quiet discussion as the man sitting next to him, told him what they expected to happen. They reached the school in good time. He looked about the campus as they entered, two of the Ishida men accompanying him. He would have preferred to have only one with him, as they would have been less obvious as bodyguards in that case, but as it was they were early enough that there were few about to see him.
There were sufficient students to make it obvious that the school had a uniform, like most Japanese schools as far as he was aware, and he hoped that the Ishida had arranged for him to be exempted from that requirement. Of course, that was not nearly as important to him at the moment as the concern over showering for the physical education classes.
In Furinkan there had been constant attempts at triggering his curse, though they had been somewhat tempered by the obvious degree of his skill, demonstrated when he had taken on a significant portion of the male student body when they were accosting Akane shortly after his arrival.
He did not feel comfortable bringing up the question with his escort, however, not wanting to admit or discuss what he had experience at Furinkan. Setsuna had some idea, he was sure, and she had been in contact with Nokomura-san, so hopefully she would have made some form of arrangement.
Going the process of being enrolled was surprisingly painless, especially surprising to Ranma, who was used to dealing with the insanity that abounded in a school headed by the elder Kunou. There were no exploding pineapples, no strange challenges. He did not even have to defend himself from an unexpected attack.
He did have to demonstrate his curse when the principal questioned the request that apparently Setsuna had previously communicated to them that he be permitted to shower and change privately. He did not escape the requirement to wear a uniform, but the principal did bend enough to agree that his female form would be allowed to wear the male uniform, something that was already done by a few girls in the school, and that he could have the uniform modified to allow him to fight effectively in it, though he was warned against instigating fights on campus.
All in all, it went unexpectedly well, and when Ranma made his way to his new home-room for his first class, he was amazed at the efficiency of both the school and the Ishida, to get him into classes the same day he enrolled, as well as absolutely certain that doom was lurking about.
Nothing ever went this well for him, and he was beyond certain that Shampoo or Ryouga would break through a wall at any moment. His nervousness was noted by the homeroom teacher, Hidetoma Watagawa, but he only directed the new student to introduce himself.
Ranma bowed. "My name is Ishida Ranma, I am a practitioner of the Indiscriminate Grappling School of Martial Arts."
An excited babble rose for a moment before Watagawa brought the class back under control. He looked over the room and directed Ranma to the first open seat at the back of the room. As with most Japanese schools, the seating was assigned, so the students at the back of the room were not those less interested in the class, or less willing to work, as they might often have been in a room where students had their choice of seating.
It was clear to Ranma that this was a more disciplined school than Furinkan High, when no-one attempted to pass him notes or leaned over to whisper. Once Watagawa had shushed them after their reaction to his introduction, everyone had buckled down. This was the mathematics period, as had been obvious from the moment Ranma walked into the room and spied the contents of the black-board, and Ranma struggled to focus and catch up with the where the class was.
The lunch hour brought a lot of excited students by, though unlike Furinkan, they had not rushed him in a mob. Rather, every few minutes another two or three students would come to introduce themselves, and mention the clubs they belonged to, with the various sports, and the karate and kendo clubs' members seeming especially excited to meet him and hint at why their clubs would be the best for him to join.
It also brought another bit of evidence that either the Ishida, or perhaps Setsuna, or even both, had given Ikuko some advice, for when he opened his bento, he found a cute cat face staring back at him, composed of course of the various foods he had been given, in the typical cutesy bento fashion. It startled him for a moment, but he grinned as he ate it, the mere thought of finally being free of his debilitating fear was enough to keep his spirits high.
The afternoon classes passed easily enough, though Ranma continued to struggle to keep awake. He would not embarrass the people who had put their faith in him, and he had gotten a full night's sleep the night before, without an early morning wakeup defenestration, so he was not actually very tired. It was merely the long habit of sleeping during class and the absence of the excitement and entertainment that the constant interruptions at Furinkan had provided that made keeping his eyes open a challenge.
Still, treating it exactly as a challenge, he did make it through the school day without falling asleep once, though by the end of the day, he may have been paying more attention to enhancing his eyesight with ki, and with attempting to memorize his new classmates names, than with the actual class material. He had been helped somewhat by the occasional thrill of certain doom that ran up his spine, focusing his attention and making him certain he was about to be attacked, though nothing came of them. He had taken some notes, certainly more than he was used to taking, and he was surprised that his hand actually felt tired and tight, similar to the tightness in his fists on a day when he had fought nearly the whole day through.
Though he was used to leaving after school as soon as they cleanup had been completed, he found today that he was met again by the two black-suited Ishida men, who guided him back to the school offices, where now, after a full day of classes, he was finally asked to sit and take the various assessment tests and questionnaires that he would have expected to do that morning. The vice-principal, a thin bespectacled man with neatly combed black hair, though Ranma thought he could see where the man had apparently blackened his own scalp to hid that his hair was thinning, explained that they wanted to avoid his being out of school for too long, to keep from forcing him to scramble to catch back up, so they had put him in a track matching the one he had been in at Furinkan. Now, they wanted to evaluate that and decide if he would remain on that track, or if he would do better at a different level.
Ranma cringed inwardly at that, worried that he would be demoted a year and thus embarrass his new name and family, and have to deal with younger students teasing him.
He channeled some ki to his hand to ease the strain of writing all day, and set about writing his assessments.
When he finally left the school that day, it was late enough that he did not feel it worthwhile to try to go to the park to see if Hotaru were around, though he wanted to see her again, to affirm that he really did have a friend. Instead, he allowed the Ishida to drive him back, trying to pay more attention this time to the actual route they were taking, since tomorrow he would need to make it to the school on his own.
---
"Hey, Usagi!" caroled Minako, as the Inner Senshi gathered around the base of their favorite tree for lunch. Usagi ran over to join them, but before she could begin telling them her news, Minako continued.
"And he was just so cute and strong!"
"Was he tall?" Makoto asked eagerly.
Minako shrugged, "Not really tall, but not too short. He was really cute, though!"
Usagi joined in the conversation. She had her Mamoru, sure, but that did not mean that she stopped enjoying looking at cute guys. Ami just listened with quiet interest. The other girls chatting about a cute guy they had spotted somewhere, and who had dibs on him, was nothing new or exciting, and she was still puzzling over the sporadic and so far fruitless warnings she had been receiving of massive energy releases in the parks.
When the fun of discussing the cute guy waned, as Minako had to admit that she had lost sight of him, Usagi was about to jump in with her news, when Makoto jumped in. "Yeah, you lost him when you ran into that poor redheaded girl! That's what you get for walking and hunting for guys instead of looking where you are going!"
Minako huffed. "Well, I was headed towards where he had been, I just lost sight of him when that group of kids ran past, and I'm sure I would have found him in a couple of seconds if I hadn't run into her. Thankfully she was not too mad about it. I think she was about your height, Usagi."
"Short, in other words," Makoto threw out, grinning. Usagi threw her a mock glare.
Finally, she found a gap in the conversation where she could tell them about her new big brother, when the bell rang and they had to hurry back to class.
As soon as classes and their after school clubs were over, she dragged Minako and Makoto to the Crown Arcade to talk, leaving Ami to her cram school classes. Shortly after they arrive, Rei showed up.
Once more Usagi's excitement about her new family situation took a back seat. Even she knew that Sailor business had to take precedent, and Rei had done a fire reading the evening before, to look for the source of the strange readings Ami had been getting, and thus had not been able to meet up with them.
Now she finally got to reveal what she had seen. As she described the way the fire had swirled chaotically before finally settling down and showing her images, Usagi felt her heart clench as she waited on her friend's words.
"It seemed to have shown something when it was swirling, though I could not tell what. Then I saw a strong girl in a Chinese dress-pantsuit combo with purple hair, a cute little kitten with white fur with darker socks and bells and a tall boy with huge glasses in white robes. Then there was a duck, a pot-bellied pig, a wild looking boy with a huge backpack and a wooden umbrella. The thing is, the images started coming faster and faster as it went on, and by the time the wild boy showed up they all started to blur together."
"So we have to watch for Chinese people?" Makoto queried, confused.
Rei shrugged. "I'm not really sure what the Great Fire meant with all the things it showed me. They might be the cause, or they might be people we are being warned about, or they might be the people that can take care of whatever is causing the problem."
"Well, we'll keep an eye out for them!" Usagi was ecstatic that she would finally get to reveal her news. "But now you have to hear what happened when I got home yesterday! I've got a new brother!"
"What?!" Rei demanded, certain this must be some plot. "You never said your mother was pregnant!"
"No, no, not like that. He's just going to be living with us. He's had a really rough time over in Nerima ward, and Mom and Dad are taking him in because of an old honor agreement, so I've got a new big brother!"
"What's he look like?" Minako and Makoto chorused, leaning forward.
"I think he's pretty cute," Usagi grinned at her friends' reactions. "But he's off limits. Part of his trouble over in Nerima was girls fighting over him, so Mom says he's off the market. But that doesn't mean we can't look! And he's a martial artist!"
Rei frowned. "What about your nights, Usagi? What if he follows you?"
Usagi shrugged. "I don't see why it would be a problem. He's not a bad guy." She pouted at Rei.
"But, what if he finds out who you are?"
"He knows about magic already," Usagi defended. She almost mentioned that he was cursed, but remembered in time that Ikuko had said he would not want anyone knowing. "Oh, that reminds me," she continued, looking to Minako. "He is really afraid of cats because of bad things that happened to him as a child. So you need to keep Artemis away from him. I've already spoken to Luna about it."
"Doesn't that seem suspicious?" Rei protested.
Usagi shuddered. "No way, I'd be scared of cats too if I went through that. Mom did not explain everything that happened, but he was thrown into a pit of cats when he was a little boy. She said he had a lot of trauma because of it."
"What? That's terrible!" Minako was tearing up at the thought of someone doing something so cruel to a child. "A pit? Was it dark? But I don't understand why that would make him scared of them."
"Well," Usagi grimaced, not having really wanted to think about this, much less have to explain it. "They had been starved, and he, he was covered in fish sausages."
"But, but then they would have? No way, how could anyone be that cruel?"
Makoto's look was grim, and her hands were fisted. "Who could do such a thing. We should find them and teach them a lesson!"
"Mom didn't say, but if he was a little kid then it was years ago. Rei, maybe the fire could find out?"
"Or if it really happened at all," Rei muttered, but she nodded. "Sure, I'll ask the Great Fire and let you guys know. I guess it won't be tonight though, I won't have time."