Double Trouble: Ranma, meet Akane! And Ranma, and Akane...

Unending BE - episode 877859

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For years he had been waiting for this day. He had watched his daughters grow up into fine and beautiful young women. Now before Soun Tendo stood a figure he believed to be his future son in law and son of his best friend, Ranma Saotome. Sure, the panda was a bit strange but that was something they could all sort out later on once the introductions were taken care of. It seemed to be a lot more harmless than first appeared now that it had deposited this pigtailed stranger in front of him. For now, make the confirmation.

"You wouldn't be..." he began.

"I'm Ranma Saotome," he said, blushing slightly. Oh, but Soun could see it now in his mind's eye! This young man in a tuxedo, standing arm in arm with any of his three daughters in a stunning wedding dress! The thought filled him with a joy unknown for years made so much easier now that he had a face to place in the dream. He could hardly wait for it to become reality! "Sorry about thi-"

Then there was a splash that rather greatly distracted everybody from the rather awkward meeting. It had come from the koi pond in the garden and from the eeks and yelps it sounded as though two people had fallen right in. Akane and Kasumi were the first to move towards the pond, yet both came to a dead stop. By the time the rest of them had caught up, it wasn't entirely hard for them to see exactly why they had reacted in this manner.

Sometimes one gets exactly what one wanted, and finds that it didn't quite turn out to plan.

"That must have been one hell of a trip, tomboy!" Ranma yelled, wringing out the water from her tuxedo. "You must've knocked us clear across to the other side of the house!"

"I didn't trip!" Akane yelled back, struggling to get back to her feet due to the sodden wet western style wedding dress clinging to her body. "Didn't you see that weird flash of light?"

"Yeah," Ranma said, offering her hand - which was accepted - to help her out of the pond. "I just figured it was my head being hit by your thick one. Why'd you even agree to this wedding in the first place?"

"Hmph!" Akane harumphed, folding her arms in front of her chest and turning her head to the side. Now Ranma knew that she really was in the doghouse! "If you're going to be like that, then I might as well tell you... that..."

In Ranma's experience, it took quite a lot to get Akane to shut up when she was in a mood like this. Getting her jaw to go slack like that, and her eyes bulging in surprise. What was it, the family watching them argue again? Everyone they knew maybe? She almost would rather not know, because being stuck in this tuxedo like this dripping wet was embarrassing enough without the inevitable rumours that would fly around as a result of this little conversation. With equal parts dread and curiosity Ranma slowly turned to face the music. Oh, just their families? Well, they were the sort to tease them over this sort of thing anyway. The panda was scratching his head with one and while holding up a sign reading "what even the hell?" in the other. Soun was blinking rather a lot but was otherwise unmoving, Kasumi had a hand over her mouth, Nabiki was slightly slumped over and said "I'm going back to bed. Wake me up when the world stops being retarded," before up and leaving. Akane was in her dogi standing right next to Ranma, both of them blushing brightly enough to rival the sun, and - Wait what were those last two again?

"Akane, you see that right?" Ranma whispered. "I'm not seeing things, right?"

"I think so," she replied. "Unless it's some weird shared hallucination, we're both seeing the same thing."

"You don't think... It's not the mirror mansion again?"

"No, nothing like that. Look at the other me's hair. It's still long."

Yeah, now that she thought about it... That other Akane had long hair. To be honest she'd even forgotten that Akane ever had long hair. The shorter style suited her so perfectly that it was like she'd always worn it that way. The longer style was nice and girly, but that didn't quite suit Akane at all. Short hair. Less girly, but it looked better on her.

The short haired Akane next to him sneezed, bringing him out of the staring contest and looking back at her. Definitely an improvement, but even so... "We should probably get you into something dry," Ranma said. Not just because of the cold, but also because she could see things Akane would probably pummel her for being able to see the second she realised that they could be seen.

"You wouldn't be..." Soun trailed off, the spell over his thoughts apparently broken.

"Ranma Saotome," she said. "Really sorry about this."

This had to be the worst or at least the weirdest month of his life. The worst. Bar none. Shall we run through the fucking checklist?! OKAY! First! The damned curse! If training and sacrificing for the art involves the temporary loss of manhood then you are doing it wrong! Second! Panda for a father! As in, with the application of cold water his father became an actual honest to goodness endangered species. Given the way he was feeling right now, it was about to become a little bit less endangered and he was about to seal the bastard away in a zoo somewhere. Three! A psychopathic warrior chick hell bent on tracking him down and putting his head on a spike! Four! The dragon's whisker! Oh, this one he couldn't tell anyone. If his father learned of it, then there would be hell to pay. Five! The revelation that he was to marry some girl he'd never met before. On consideration, the three on offer looked sorta cute. That just made him wonder what the damn catch was. And it couldn't get weirder than that, right? That's quite a lot of sudden directional shifts for one month thank you very much. He'd much rather head back to China and deal with at least one of these problems right now. Get it gone, get it sorted forever and never think about it ever again.

And now he was learning that it could indeed be that much weirder. He looked to his left and felt a little bit irked. This lookalike wasn't quite an exact copy. He was taller. Had the slightest bit more muscle to him. Then to the left of the doppelganger was a girl that looked quite a lot like the kinda cute girl in the dogi, except her hair was short and she was taller too. Didn't end there. Neither of them were wearing them now, those clothes . After introducing themselves as actually being Ranma Saotome and Akane Tendo, the two of them had asked for some hot water and a change of clothes. The girl in the dress - Kasumi? That other Ranma had called her that, he thought - had obliged readily. The other Ranma had demonstrated the curse and even offered the kettle over to himself and the panda while the short haired Akane had gone upstairs to change out of her wedding dress. Western style but a wedding dress - a wedding dress - nonetheless. Questions? He had a few. Now the two of them were in much less formal and much drier clothes - the alternate Akane in a sundress while his future self had borrowed some of his clothes. They were a little small on his bigger frame, but not too much so that he couldn't wear them. Looking across at the Akane in the dogi she certainly didn’t seem all that happy either. Kept opening and closing her mouth like she wanted to ask a question but couldn’t quite bring herself to put the words out past her lips.

"So what was the deal with the kettle?" the middle girl, (Nabiki? Yeah yeah that's what they'd said) had asked. Her explanation had been that she had stubbed her toe on the way up to her room, concluded this couldn't be a dream and came back to see what happened. But given the glint in her eye, Ranma could tell she was enjoying this. "How'd you change like that?"

"That was a curse they picked up in China," the short haired Akane explained. "Cold water changes Mr Saotome into a panda, while it changes Ranma into the girl you all saw earlier. Hot water changes them back to normal."

"Oh, the perils of martial arts training!" Mr Tendo weeped. "But that doesn't tell us why there are two of you or why you look so much more mature."

"I don't know about that either Mr Tendo," the other him replied, scratching the back of his head. "We've been through some pretty weird stuff, even aside from the curse. We've had to deal with ghosts, oni, vengeful dolls, cursed bikinis, paper dolls that make people do whatever's written on them so long as they're on your back -"

"I don't remember that one," the short haired Akane interrupted.

"Gosunkugi had those. He wound up wasting them because he's a dumbass... The point is we've had to deal with all sorts of curses, spells -"

"And weddings?" Nabiki interrupted, betraying her enjoyment of the situation and giving absolutely no damns about it. Though this Ranma didn't quite know yet that Nabiki never gave damns. She sold them.

The two other... other thems turned bright crimson and engaged in the rare sport of synchronised floor fascination. "That- That's complicated!" their Akane cried. "We- we really don't want to talk about that."`

"Ah!" Kasumi gasped, clasping her hands together, bringing the argument to a stop. "I think I understand now. How long ago was it that Saotomes arrived from your perspective?"

"We got here about two years ago," the other him said, and a hush followed after. Two years. Two years had passed for them, and it was the same damn day for the rest of them. Well. That rather did explain a lot, didn't it? Ranma may not be the most well read person of his age but he had still read quite a few things in his time. The idea of time travel was not alien to him by any means.

"Interesting," pops said, adjusting his glasses. "So you say that you are from the future? I demand proof!"

"What sort of proof, old man?"

"On consideration... The lottery numbers for the next three months may well suffi-"

There was a gust of air. That was it. Nothing more than that. Where there was a physical presence immediately to his left and right before, there were now neither. The movement had been so fast that he couldn't even track it after the fact. At his best guess the other him had managed to stand up, dash past him and had the time to throw maybe one punch that sent the old man flying into the garden. Except that when the old man rose once again it was easy to tell that hadn't just been one punch. It hadn't even just been two.

"So you've at least been keeping up with your training in the future!" Genma cackled.

"Kick your ass on a daily basis!" future Ranma sniffed.

"Oh, so you have improved that much over two years? I would very much like to see that!"

"Hey, don't leave me out of this!" Ranma yelled. "I still want to kick his ass for dragging me here and dropping this engagement thing on me! Besides which, I don't even really think you are me at all!"

The three Saotomes were now standing in the garden in a triangle position. Genma was a little bit nervous, but wouldn't admit it. Not that it was hard to tell given the way he was sweating, but he wouldn't verbally admit it even if his body language screamed it. None of the three moved, for that is the true peril of a real three person fight. The first to make a move on any of the others leaves themselves open to assault by the remaining fighter. This being known by all fighters made such fights impossible, as nobody wanted to be the one to throw the first punch.

"Your son raises an excellent point Genma," Soun said. The three person showdown relaxed a bit and cast their attention back to him. "This development rather simplifies matters in one sense, and could easily complicate it in others. After all, it appears quite clear that Ranma and Akane will develop a strong and healthy relationship over the next two years!"

"What?!" present Ranma and Akane yelled in unison.

"I barely know her!"

"Don't I have a say in this?!"

"Two years should be enough time for you to get to know each other," Nabiki replied, "And I would say that you quite probably did have something to say about it. Getting you into that wedding dress without your cooperation would've been a sight to see! I think any argument you can make to the contrary can be rendered completely worthless in the face of our future arrivals. Don’t you think?"

“Oh my, I’m not sure about that one,” Kasumi tapped her chin thoughtfully. “If the future Ranma and Akane didn’t encounter their own future selves at this point, then their relationship may have progressed in completely different ways. If they did experience these events and are merely pretending not to, then the very idea of human free will is refuted as all actions and reactions are pre-ordained and merely waiting for the right moment to trigger. Alternatively, if they did not experience this then it is entirely possible that their presence has a chance of altering the relationship into a completely unrecognisable form: It may even completely negate the chance of them being in a relationship to begin with because they are already on the path to becoming completely different people, and that path will only diverge ever more wildly the more that their future selves interact with their lives.”

All around the room stared slack jawed at Kasumi, who looked around the room at all the surprised faces. Then she shrugged. “Doctor Tofu has been lending me some science fiction books recently.”.

Go back - Go to the parent episode.

Lumitiel

Sat Jun 30 08:00:29 2012

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