Wish you never left 8

Chapter 8

The morning sun brought a warm glow in the window of the master bedroom of the Tendo home. The habitual resident of the room, Soun Tendo was not in, but two figures filled only a little of the low double bed within.

Akane smiled as she woke up warm, held in the arms of her fiancé... with a sudden freeze, Akane opened her eyes, looking at the red headed girl form of Ranma Saotome, her face all but resting on the chest of her partner, swelling with each light snore.

Starting to pull back, the red heads arms pulled her closer, Akane naturally squeezing back.

Closing her eyes at the comfort, part of Akane squirmed in the surreal dreamlike moment. The blue eyes opened, a smile brightening the lips, face, and eyes at seeing her.

Biting her lower lip, Akane glanced away as she spoke. “Ranma, can you turn back to your boy... man form?”

Kimiko froze, eyes narrowing on Akane. “Akane-chan...” the returned mother of the Akane began but dropped off unsure of how to handle this tactfully.

Akane beamed bright red and jumped out of bed. “Mom!”

“Indeed, dear.”

“It was a dream, a nightmare, I swear. Please don't tell Ranma?”



Kimiko looked at her red faced youngest daughter sit beside and purposefully not look at the young man beside her. It was disappointing that Soun hadn't done the best of jobs in raising the emotional state of their daughters. It was far from surprising, her husband in his forties being so juvenile in denying her return.

Still some embarrassment now would only help Akane learn about herself, and with the challenge from Happosai and the Amazon's, marriage plans were likely to be delayed till Akane was ready to defend it. Somehow her daughter's reaction in remembering this new body she had been revived in once was a cursed form of her fiancé, made her sure Akane would not be able to spend the years it took her to master the true power of Martial Arts Belly Dancing without escalating things with Ranma that should be left till after marriage.

Savoring some of her breakfast, she ruefully considered the hypocrisy of that, her minds eye flashing to memories of herself and Soun. Still her house her rules.

Seeing at least Akane and Nabiki were nearly finished, Kimiko put down her chopsticks, “Girls? I'd like to meet you at end of school today for some shopping.”

She let her gaze linger on Akane. “If Akane is going to master my mothers school to accept the challenges over the Flame of Cheung'ma, she has a lot of training and preparation ahead of her before she can proceed with any consideration of marriage.”

Akane blushed but was surprised when Ranma was nodding at mothers priorities, her lips tightening, wondering if he was trying to hold off that issue between them again.

“Ranma, I think Akane would like to be more confident before we bring you in to help refine her education in my style, so I'd like meet you back here to continue our training under you after dinner if we can?”

Pursing his lips, Ranma nodded, mildly annoyed by this secret technique Akane and the girls were learning, a lifetime of instinct wanting to know it, adapt from it and to beat it. Still he could always make it a race to, for him to beat the

Smiling Kimiko, nodding in thanks. “Both of us may be tender around the midriff and it may be best if avoid training that impacts such,” Kimiko added with a wave of her hand to her stomach. “Just for tonight.”

Frowning initially at the request, Ranma shrugged, “No problem.”

Nabiki awkwardly put her hand up, getting the attention of the women and Ranma.

“Um, Mother, I actually have an appointment in the city after school, its something important.”

“By yourself?” Kimiko asked.

“Actually, I was planning to drag Ranma with me to make sure I don't get pestered by boys being a single girl all alone.” Nabiki gave Ranma a stern look, ignoring Akane's jealous look, but when her younger sister turned to look at Ranma, the middle Tendo daughter nodded him at Akane.

Ranma recognized the look as 'You handle her', and knew Nabiki meant for him to calm Akane over this, to change her perception and make her see there was nothing here to get over it.

“Um, Bodyguard duty? I can do that,” Ranma stated, looking hopefully at his suspicious fiancée, missing Nabiki giving him a thumbs up, his own mind jumping to the wrong conclusion. “Not body, sister guard. I don't care about her body.”

Nabiki put her thumb down as the frowning Akane elbowed her fiancé.



Kasumi waited at the top of the stairs with the tiny kitten they had found the night before held behind her back as she watched Ranma lead her sisters out of the house, Nabiki running last after talking with the returned mother of the house in the kitchen.

The enthusiasm in her sisters was obvious with the return of mother. Part of her heart felt dead and not feeling that same excitement, that drive, that much joy in life.

Lifting the brown kitten up to her face, she smiled warmly as it yawned cutely, stretching its legs. Regretfully she nodded, “Lets go find out where you came from and get you home, little one.”



Walking between her fiancé and sister towards school, Akane was surprised when at the point where Ranma would normally leap to the fence and balance walk the rest of the way to school he grabbed her arm and tugged her towards the fence. “Up you get, training time.”

“I can't run on the fence!” Akane cried.

Ranma shrugged, “You can skate, so you should be able to do this. Ain't like we'll be running ahead, today at least. So focus and do it.”

“You won't be up there too?” Akane asked unsure.

“I can't see how you do it from up there.”

“You're going to be looking up my skirt!” Akane accused, her hands slapping on her skirt to keep it down despite it being down and her being shorter than him.

Wincing, Ranma shook his head, “That isn't it!”

“Akane,” Nabiki said speaking up, “Setting aside the fact you asked him to teach you, you've flashed your knickers to most of the boys in school when you used to kick them away from you, including your fiancé.”

Akane looked at Ranma as he studied Nabiki, giving time for the middle Tendo sister to continue. “Besides, before we left Mom told me about what your buying tonight.”

Eyes widening, Akane visualized herself in some 'Genie' like belly dancer outfit, the image expanding with a 'Sheik' like Ranma watching her dance making her blush. Her imagination rampant expanded further to show his harem of wives behind him.

“Pervert!”

Ranma stepped back, “Huh? How am I the pervert? It sounds like your Mom is?”

Akane wound up and prepared to slug her fiancé for that one, when Nabiki grabbed Ranma's ear and twisted it as hard as she could.

“Ow!” Ranma declared, his hand grabbing hers holding it suddenly aware how much weaker than him the young woman was.

“Ranma, firstly our Mom isn't a pervert, but she is more liberal than I expected. Call her perverted again and I will withdraw my help.”

“Ow, okay okay. But I ain't a pervert either.”

Akane looked quizzically at her sister. “What help?”

Nabiki considered her sister for a long moment. “Ranma isn't feeling very confident in his ability to be your Master so he has given himself a macho outdo his father task and needed my to be his Master to guide him to it.”

“Hey?” Ranma said, not agreeing with her assessment as to the importance of what this meant and how it made him a true master. “You're teaching Ranma the art?” Akane said in a slow unconvinced tone.

With a smirk, Nabiki turned and started walking again. “He knows the art, now he needs some shaping. Speaking of shaping, Ranma, how do you plan for Akane to grab Ms Hinako boob?”

“Excuse me?” Akane said shocked looking threateningly at her fiancé.

“Do you plan on hiding from her all day at school?”

“No,” Akane said.

“Yep,” Ranma said.

Nabiki turned and looked at Ranma. “Hinako thinks you, in your cursed form, is after Daddy. That is the truth to her. You have to tell her, without showing your cured, that you have no interest in Daddy and establish a truce.”

“Why can't I show I'm cured?”

Sighing Nabiki shook her head, “You tell me?”

Ranma froze, suddenly visualizing the question like a punch to the face. It was like when his father would show him a new technique, they would practice it for a long time, and suddenly his father would exploit its weakness and clobber him. Teaching him to anticipate an attack with the technique, building defenses for the future around what he had just learned.

Pursing his lips, he considered Nabiki's priorities. Money. Teasing. Maybe to keep him on edge... His head came up, “So she doesn't go after ya Mom?”

“Very good student.”

Akane tapped her foot. “That's good and all, but how does that come to me grabbing my teachers chest?”

Nabiki looked questioningly at Ranma.

“Cause she won't listen. I'd have to make her powerless, so that I can tell her how this is and make her listen. And I can't grab her chest so you have to.”

“And you said you couldn't do this yourself,” Nabiki said smirking.

Ranma smiled only to duck a kick from his fiancée.

“Your not grabbing me to show me where your perverted pressure points are.”

Stepping into her next punch, Ranma got in her face. “No student, you get to practice on me.”

Kasumi Tendo didn't look up at the sunny day as she walked slowly down the street, patting the tiny brown kitten in her hand.

She felt a little like the poor animal, suddenly out of home in the big wide world and at a loss of what to do or where to go. Of course she wasn't kicked out of home but Kasumi felt the keen loss of her household duties to her returned mother, her future suddenly open and more than a little scary.

Still at least today she could go and talk to the local vet and pet stores to ask about finding the adorable little animals home.

With a jolt, the little brown kitten dove off her palm, landing smoothly and darting ahead up the footpath and around the corner.

“Oh my, come back Kitty,” Kasumi called, running in pursuit, rounding the corner to see the little kitten leaping into the hands of a foreign woman standing there. “Oh, hello, is that your kitten?”

The brown haired woman in the exotic blue flowing robes and gold bracelets took a moment before looking up from the kitten, “Oh my, thank you. You found Mr Snuggles. Thank you very much.”

For a moment Kasumi could only blink at the stranger for a moment, before bowing respectfully. “You are welcome. He came into our families yard earlier. He is so very cute.”

“Please, let me buy you some tea to thank you. My name is Belldandy.”

Agreeing respectfully, Kasumi soon found herself being led in a small café nearby, finding the young woman opposite her so easy to talk to, so non judgemental, unable to stop herself talking about her day, her life, the return of her mother, the chaos of the last year…

Belldandy smiled gently as she sipped her hot tea and listened, feeling the joy in her heart of both succeeding in her purpose, and hopefully helping a new friend.