Ranma the Combat Maid
Prologue
Klaus, Sanzen'in Nagi's head butler, was deep in thought. As he walked down one of the many silent corridors of the mansion, which was only illuminated by the light of the evening sun as it came in through the windows, he considered a debt owed by one Saotome Genma.
After Nagi's previous butler, Himegami Akane, had quit, his first action had been to collect Genma's son, in order to instate him as Nagi's new butler. However, when he had gone to the Saotome's home, his wife had informed him of their ongoing training journey. She had also told him that they had recently gone to China, and that she hadn't heard from her husband since.
He figured that he could wait for Genma's return, for a time; thus — as expected — he made the position open to certain circles, so that others could apply to become Nagi's butler. Of course, since he had his mind set on Genma's son, he had made the qualifications very unreasonable, making it so that not one of the candidates could become Nagi's butler.
And then Ayasaki Hayate had entered the picture. It was true that he was tough, but if Genma's son was anything like his father, when he had seen him in action almost twenty years ago, then he would have been far superior. Unfortunately, Nagi, and her feelings toward Hayate, had overcome his attempts to get rid of him. And finding a distinct lack of support from Maria hadn't helped, either.
Back when Hayate had recently become a butler, before his position had essentially been made resolute, he had returned to the Saotome's home, hoping that Genma and his son had returned. He had figured that, if he could demonstrate how much better Genma's son would be, as a butler, that it would finally settle the whole affair and things would then play out as he had planned. What he found, instead, was their house in shambles.
He had seen it as a sign to give up, so he had resigned himself to the fact that Hayate was going to be Nagi's new butler. And while Genma still owed the Sanzen'in family a debt, he didn't pursue the matter because he had yet to find out where Genma could be found. He could have approached Genma's wife, who had found residence with Genma's friend, Tendo Soun, but he didn't have the heart to trouble such a lovely lady over such a matter.
Then, last night, at a social function that he had attended for matters regarding business, he had overheard the name "Saotome" from a nearby group of gossiping women. He had thought nothing of it until he had also heard the name "Tendo," a few seconds later. So he had approached the group, interrupted their giggling fit, and inquired about the identities of those that they had mentioned. As it turned out, the women had been making fun of the Kuno family; of Kuno Tatewaki, to be exact. Which was normal since — among the notable rich families of the world — the Kuno family was among the most mockworthy. More importantly, however, was the fact that Kuno Tatewaki had claimed to have stopped a Saotome Ranma from marrying a Tendo Akane.
He knew the name of Genma's son, so he had carried out an investigation first thing in the morning. Well, it hadn't so much been an investigation as it had been the delivery of a simple question to Tendo Soun's eldest daughter, from their doorstep. Regardless of how he had found out, he had left it at that and returned to the mansion, where he had since considered what action he should take. It was far too late to replace Hayate as Nagi's butler, and he knew that Genma couldn't pay the debt outright, so...
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of something fragile being broken. Ahead of him was a door, which led into the kitchen, and it was open by a crack. He opened it further, stood within the doorway, and looked into the room so he could see what had happened. To put it simply: it appeared as if a natural disaster or three had taken place inside. Pots and pans were scattered all over the place, most of the cabinet doors were either left open or missing entirely, there were plenty of cups and dishes that had met their end, the table and chairs were in pieces, and various unknown substances had been spilled on, or splattered against, every surface in sight. And, for some reason, the head of an Ewok was sticking out of one of the walls, there were horseshoe prints on the ceiling, and a tribal mask from Africa was lying on the floor.
In the midst of this mess stood Maria, who was currently patting the underside of a pot over a trash bin. Said pot contained something brown speckled with green, which had somehow — in the process of being made — crystallized. When the mystery crystal finally fell out of the pot, it went into the trash bin and shattered. With a sigh, she turned toward the stove to take care of something else.
With an idea having formed in his mind, Klaus cleared his throat to get Maria's attention. She ceased her current task, turned around to face him and — with a neutral expression on her face — asked, "yes?"
Klaus nudged his glasses upward, until they settled higher up on the bridge up his nose, before he nonchalantly said, "oh, I was just wondering if you needed some help."
A wave of relief washed over Maria, whose face lit up with a bright smile. "I'd really appreciate it."
"I'm glad to hear that," was Klaus' response, as he turned around to leave. "I'll be arranging some more help for you tomorrow."
With that said, he was gone. Maria was left to stare at an empty doorway, her smile remaining but with one of her eyebrows twitching. She had been under the impression that
he had offered his help for the mess that she had to clean up
now. Which would have been nice, since her workload had increased as of late even with Hayate around, since he was often indisposed by something or at least partly responsible for the increased workload in question. Currently, he was indisposed by whatever Nagi had made for him to eat while they had been out on errands.
Then her expression turned thoughtful, as she considered what Klaus must have meant. To herself, she wondered, "is he going to hire another maid?"
Ranma and Akane were on their way home after an uneventful day at school. Well, uneventful if one didn't include the usual happenings. As it was, they were just glad that things hadn't escalated after what had happened several days ago, when Akane's father had conspired to get her married to Ranma by holding his cure ransom. And now that the other girls had a reason to feel more threatened by Akane's relationship with Ranma, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before the other shoe dropped. Of course, knowing their luck, there was the distinct possibility of something new coming up to complicate their lives further.
So, when they saw the black limousine parked in front of their home, as well as the big, burly guy that was stationed outside of it, who wore a black suit and a pair of shades, they each had an uneasy feeling about their presence. They slowed their pace once they were close to him, and they kept their eyes trained on him until they reached the open gate; whereupon, they focused their eyes ahead of themselves and quickly made their way into the house.
Even before they had opened the door, they had heard someone's raised voice coming from within — though not well enough to know what had been said. After they slipped off their shoes and set their school bags aside, they set their course for the living room. Inside they found their parents sitting at the table, along with Kasumi and a guest. While the guest, who appeared to be an elderly gentleman, was noteworthy, what really caught their attention was the sword that Genma had caught between his hands, in front of his face, and the fact that his wife, Nodoka, seemed intent on cleaving his head with it.
"Now, Nodoka," Genma tried to reason with his wife, his brow sweaty, "there's no need to overreact."
Visibly shaking with anger, Nodoka replied, "overreact? I've just recently reunited with my son, after more than a decade of separation, and you think I'll just accept another
thirty years!?"
Though both Ranma and Akane were alarmed, it was the former who spoke up. "...What?"
Everyone at the table turned their eyes or head, or both, to regard him. Soun and Genma did their best to school their features, though it was obvious that they were nervous; the blade of a sword within inches of the latter's face not withstanding. And while the elderly gentleman gave an appraising look, Kasumi was giving one of sympathy. His mother's expression of anger, on the other hand, had given away to distress.
"Oh, Ranma!" She cried out.
She abandoned her sword and raced around the table, so she could embrace her son. Once she had him in her arms, she began to sob.
"I don't want to lose you!" She wept.
Ranma didn't know what to do, at first. He didn't understand the situation. However, with his mother crying in his arms, and what he had seen her doing before, it wasn't long before he was shooting an accusatory glare toward his father.
"Old man," he drew out with a growl, "what have you done now?"
The elderly gentleman chose that time to get up from the table and say, "perhaps I should explain."
Ranma regarded the man warily, and with some contempt, since he was a part of reason for why his mother was so upset. He looked to be a man in his fifties — sixties, at the most — and wore a suit that reminded him more of a butler than a businessman. He also wore a pair of glasses, bore a mustache and, by the look of it, he appeared to be in good shape. At the moment, his facial expression was neutral.
"Who are you?" Ranma pointedly asked.
"My name is Klaus," said person replied, as he held out his hand, "and I'm the head butler of the Sanzen'in family. You must be Saotome Ranma."
Ranma hesitated, for a second, before he reached around his mother to shake his hand.
"Yeah, that's me," he admitted.
Akane, still showing her concern, spoke up and asked, "can you tell us what's going on?"
"Well, to put it simply," Klaus calmly replied, "Saotome Genma owes a debt of one-hundred-million yen."
Ranma and Akane were shocked, to say the least. Had it been a debt in the thousands, they would have understood: that happened often enough, after all. Even a debt in the tens of thousands would not have fazed them. Ranma himself had acquired a debt of one-hundred-thousand yen, similar to the debt that his father — along with Akane's father — had acquired twenty years ago; and from the same source, to boot. It had been a tough debt to pay off, but manageable in a reasonable amount of time.
But a debt that was one-hundred times that of one-hundred-thousand yen?
Akane was the first to find her voice. "But... How?"
"And what does that have to do with me?" Ranma added.
Nodoka pulled away from her son and, with a glowering look toward her husband, she said, "you can 'thank' your father for that."
Klaus pulled out a sheet of paper from within his jacket and proffered it to Ranma. "This was the payment plan that was agreed upon."
Ranma accepted it and looked it over. It appeared to be a contract, signed by both Klaus, his father, and a witness. It was a written agreement that said that Genma's son, upon reaching an appropriate age, would work for the Sanzen'in family as a servant to pay off the debt.
"The idea had been mine," Klaus coolly admitted, when it seemed like Ranma had digested enough of the contract. "Really, one-hundred-million yen is a drop in the bucket, but my main duty is to ensure the safety of those whom I serve. After I witnessed your father's performance in the contest, and once I had discovered the false entry fee that he and his friend had used in order to participate, I saw a means to take care of the debt while also ensuring my peace of mind after I retired."
Ranma looked up from the contract with a questioning look on his face. "What do you mean?"
"It had been my intention to hire you as a butler," Klaus answered, as if that explained everything.
"As for the how of the matter," he went on, in order to address Akane's question, "we had set up a tournament to see whose butler was the best. The doors had been opened to other fighters, as well, so we could see how they measured up. However, even though we had lowered the entry fee to fifty-million yen, no one from the lower classes of society — save for your fathers — had entered."
"Gee, I wonder why," Ranma and Akane thought to themselves, in a sarcastic tone.
"They did very well," Klaus conceded, "and I'll admit that I'm glad to have not fought either of them until the final round. Had that not been the case, I might not have come away as the champion."
"So, how
did they lose," Akane inquired, a curious expression on her face.
"They faced each other in the semi-finals and fought until exhaustion," Klaus informed her, before turning his attention to Ranma. "As soon as the final round had begun, your father collapsed before I could move."
Akane and Ranma turned their half-lidded gazes toward their fathers.
"Well, it wouldn't have happened if a
certain someone had listened to me," Genma spoke up in a self-righteous tone, his arms crossed.
"Don't you dare pin all of the blame on
me, Saotome," Soun hotly retorted. "You were going to keep all of the prize money for yourself!"
"I would have shared
some of it," Genma argued. "After all, a billionaire would have had some money to spare."
"But the plan was to split the money evenly between us," Tendo angrily shouted back.
Genma waved the statement aside with his hand. "Details, Tendo. Details."
In light of their exchange — and in front of a guest, no less — Akane, Ranma and Nodoka showed various signs of embarrassment. If Kasumi were embarrassed, she did a good job of not showing it, as she sipped from her tea. Klaus did well to hide his thoughts regarding their behavior, but they were there.
Ranma, who had managed to suppress his desire to hit his father, instead chose to close his eyes, furrow his brow, and pinch the bridge of his nose as a thought occurred to him. "What I want to know is: just how did they manage to enter the tournament without paying the entry fee?"
It was Klaus' turn to show some embarrassment, as he turned his eyes away and said, "well, at the time, I assumed that an IOU was a cheque used by lower-classed citizens..."
In response, Ranma, Akane and Nodoka could only share looks of disbelief. Klaus, not wanting to endure such scrutiny, cleared his throat and said, "anyway, my business here has yet to be finished. Have I answered all of your questions?"
Ranma frowned. "You want to hire me as a butler, in order to repay my father's debt, right?"
"...Not quite," was Klaus' response, who sighed. "I didn't get around to this earlier, because of... a disagreement, as it were. But, well, to make a long story short... this and that happened, and I was forced to accept someone else as my ojou-sama's personal butler."
"Ojou-sama?" Akane frowned at the thought, and imagined Ranma waiting on hand and foot for some beautiful woman.
With a worried look on her face, Nodoka asked, "what does that mean for my son?"
"Well," Klaus hesitatingly began, "since I've tried to get rid of ojou-sama's chosen butler on multiple occasions, she might see hiring another butler as some plan to replace him. As it turns out, there's another position in need of being filled, which would still allow him to perform the duty that I had been most concerned with, but..."
Everyone in the room, aside from Kasumi, showed visible signs of expectation.
"...he'd have to be a maid," he finished.
Ranma, in a show of outrage, immediately exclaimed, "a maid!? But I'm—!"
He was interrupted by the cold water that had suddenly been dumped over his head, which had been followed up by a familiar voice that had insinuated, "a girl, sometimes," after what he had said. He looked over his shoulder and glared at Nabiki through his now-dripping-wet bangs, who didn't appear to be all that concerned about it as she held an empty glass in her hand.
"What's the big idea, Nabiki," Ranma posed, his hands clenched and shaking.
Nabiki crossed her arms and calmly said, "it's not like you haven't done this sort of thing before."
"But not for thirty—!"
He found himself interrupted once again, only this time it was by the sensation of one of his breasts being prodded. He returned his attention to the fore and walloped Klaus over the head, who fell to the floor in a pink and pain-induced daze.
With his eyes clenched shut and his tense body shaking, Ranma resolutely muttered, "I'm not going to be a maid for thirty years."
"Now, boy," Genma spoke up from his place at the table, sounding holier-than-thou, "this is a matter of honor. Are you a man or aren't you?"
Ranma shot his father a murderous look. "Why don't I honor your death wish, first?"
A hand was placed on his shoulder. He looked up to see his mother, and most of the fire went out of him. Not so much because of how tired she looked, despite the underlying agitation displayed on her brow, but because he knew what she was going to say.
"I'm afraid that he's right." She said with a sigh.
Ranma tried to argue. "But—!"
"For the time being," she interrupted, and locked her gaze with her son's. "I won't stand to be separated from you any longer than necessary."
Ranma nodded, almost imperceptibly, as his mother communicated a great deal of feelings and ideas with her eyes. It was clear that she didn't like the situation any better than he did. She did not relish having to do what honor demanded. And so it was that, as one, they turned to regard Genma with looks of contempt.
Klaus had recovered by this time; and he had regained his compusure, as well. He didn't understand what had happened when Genma's son had been splashed with water, but he figured that it may have made his proposed idea more acceptable, thus viable. However, it didn't look like Genma's wife and child were taking it well, by the look of things. It was too bad for Genma, then, that he wasn't abreast with their situation, much less their lives: or else he wouldn't have made the following gesture, for his wife's benefit.
"You're welcome to visit your..." he paused to ask, "son," before he continued and said, "any time you like. In fact, it wasn't until I had made that clear that your husband had finally agreed to this form of payment."
Something clicked in Ranma's mind. And while Genma wasn't quite sure why he felt a great sense of impending doom, he did, and it put him on edge.
"You don't happen to live in a mansion or something, do you?" Ranma posed to Klaus, who felt uncomfortable under the supposed-girl's piercing gaze. It was almost accusatory in nature.
"Well, yes," Klaus tentatively replied. "Why do you—"
He was unable to finish his question because an intense, red aura had enveloped the person that it had been directed toward. Not only them, but their mother, as well. Their auras blazed like giant bonfires, which somehow cast their faces into the shadows. The effect made them look quite sinister, so he didn't need the heat that wafted off of them to tell him to put more distance between them and himself. Akane and Nabiki began to do the same, and Kasumi had spoken aloud some excuse so she could excuse herself from being so near the target of their ire. Their father had quickly slipped into the hall, where he cowered and wished his friend a painless death. As for Genma, he began to make a futile effort to sneak away.
"So," Ranma said, his voice quiet and flat, "the reason for my training..."
"...And the reason for being separated from my son for so long," Nodoka added, in the same manner as her son.
"I should have known," they both exclaimed at the same time.
Genma tried to make a run for it, but his wife and son pounced before he could. He quickly found himself in a world of hurt, as they delivered upon him their righteous fury. What became of him, beyond that, will remain nondescript due to censorship. The scene is just too brutal to elaborate on in any amount of detail. But you can rest assured that he didn't die: that would have been a kindness that Ranma and Nodoka were far too unwilling to grant.
Regardless, it impressed upon Klaus to not get on Ranma's bad side. More importantly, of course, he felt relieved because it looked like his investment was finally going to pay off. And it certainly wouldn't hurt to gain enough favor with Maria to have her take his side on a certain matter, should the opportunity to bring it up ever arise again. To think that she had taken ojou-sama's side to fire him after he'd won that bet — that would have seen Hayate fired — fair and square...
After "taking care of" Genma, it wasn't long before Ranma found himself standing outside, between the limousine and everyone save for Soun and Genma (as the former of the two was tending to the latter). Beside him was Klaus and the chauffeur, who stood by silently as the goodbyes commenced.
Nodoka stepped forward and embraced her son, who eagerly returned it. Once she pulled back, she smiled reassuringly at him. "I'll come to visit you soon. Be strong; we'll figure something out."
"Okay, mom," he replied, returning the smile.
"Are you sure that you have everything that you need?" Kasumi asked.
Ranma considered what he had packed in his bag before saying, "I think so."
With a straight face, Nabiki said, "be sure to send me a few pictures with you wearing your maid outfit."
"Don't count on it," Ranma replied, who shook his head at the thought.
When Ranma's attention turned to Akane, she lamely offered, "I guess I'll come to visit you, too, so..."
"What," Ranma said, putting on an expression of disappointment, "you're not going to take my place?"
Akane blinked in confusion and intelligently voiced, "huh?"
"You know," Ranma went on to explain, "like when I pretended to be one of your father's daughters and got that French guy to pick me instead of one of you."
"Then again," he continued, looking skyward with a thoughtful look on his face, "I guess they wouldn't be interested in a barrel-bodied bull wearing a—"
Despite the mallet that now rested on the pronounced lump on his head, he smiled and said, "I'll miss you, too."
"Idiot," was Akane's soft reply.
Ranma then proceeded to say goodbye to everyone before he got into the limousine. Klaus followed suit, then the chauffeur closed the door behind them before getting into the limousine himself. A few seconds later the limousine was on its way and — soon after — out of sight.
Chapter 1