"The Sorcererous Saotome" By The Dark Geek of the Sith

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I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed this. I should have the next chapter upsoon.

Disclaimer: You all know the drill, I don't own these characters and I'm not making any money off of this, so don't sue.

Author's note: This story is a divergence from cannon taking place at the time when Nodaka first shows up. I got the idea from an omake.

Chapter 1 A Shocking Discovery, She's a WHAT!?

It was a fairly average day in the Tendo dojo.

Mind you, average for Nermina, which along with being a district of Tokyo, was known in itself for being an epicenter of mayhem and chaos.

Heck, if anything it was a quiet day.

Ranma had only been malleted once this morning. (Akane seemed to be doing it less lately)

The Saotomes had finished their morning sparring session.

Kasumi was cooking a wonderful breakfast

And there had been no sign of any Fiancés or Rivals yet.

All in all it was shaping up to be a pretty peaceful day.

And then the Mail arrived.

A splash was heard before Genma-panda was standing before the table, looking like the hounds of Hell (or an angry Happosai) were on his tail. Before anyone could ask, he had dumped a bucket of water on Ranma.

"Whadja do that for Pop!?" The now female Ranma shouted.

We're taking a trip to China boy! The panda sign said in panicked scribbles. flip NOW!!! He said as he started to drag his 'daughter' through the back door.

His attempts were stopped as said daughter grabbed the door frame, halting his progress. "Whadja do now Pop?" She asked in exasperation.

We have to get away! flip She'll be here any minute now!

"Whatcha talking about Pops? Who'll be here?"

Your MOTHER!!! as he was 'saying' this the envelope fell out of his paw. He made a grab for it but Nabiki got to it first.

"My mother?" Ranma said as the information sunk in. "Mom's coming here? And you wanna LEAVE?!"

You don't understand, boy! flip She can't find out about your curse! flip She'll kill both of us!

"Wow, she writes like Kuno does." Nabiki commented as she read through the letter.

Akane leaned curiously over to take a look. "What's it say?"

"It's addressed to the head of the Tendo family. It seems to be a formal letter stating that she'll be arriving on the 15th (that's today) to meet her son and husband now that 'their illustrious quest to better themselves in the arts has finally come to it's conclusion.' Geez, she really writes like Kuno."

And we have to be out of here before she get's here!

"Pop, juststop freakin'and explai-"

There's a knocking at the door.

That's her!!! flip We have to RUN!!!

"Nothin' doin' Pops." Ranma-chan stated as Kasumi made her way to the door. "I wanna meet her."

Kasumi was heard asking their guest inside. Whatever you do, don't tell her who you are! he stated as Nodaka walked in the room

"Hello Soun, It's a pleasure to see you again." She said with a polite bow.

"Nodoka, I haven't seen you in ages, how have you been doing."

"Well enough. I received word that my husband and my manly son were staying here."

Hello, complete stranger flip Ranma and his father left on a training trip.

Blink blink. "A trained panda? How adorable! It reminds me of my Nieces' pet Aligator."

Everyone in the room sweatdropped. Nabiki was the first to recover and quickly went into analysis mode.

Akane was the first to ask, "Um, excuse me Mrs. Saotome?"

"Oh, you must be Akane. You can call call me 'Auntie,' dear."

"Um, Auntie?" Akane tried again. "What was that bit about Ranma being manly?"

"Oh it's quite simple Akane dear." Nodoka said with an eerily familiar look on her face. "Before the left on their trip, I made Genma and Ranma sign a contract saying that he would be raised to be a 'man among men'. And he has no doubt raised our son to indeed be the manliest of the manly." Genma-panda was sweating bullets at this point and Ranma-chan was speechless.

"Um, Auntie?" Akane asked again, this time seriously worried. "What would happen if he wasn't?"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that dear." She soothed. "From what my Niece Kodachi has told me, he is courting several girls and has even succeeded in attracting the attention of her." She got a far away look in her eye. "His own cousin, my son is so manly! And Tatawaki tells me that he is practicing the dark arts to enslave even more to his iron will. Oh, just the thought sends shivers up my spine. My son, a sorcerer." She sighs, "So manly… There's no way he'll have to commit Seppuku."

Nabiki recovered first. "So auntie, by any chance is your maiden name Kuno?"

"Why yes dear. Nabiki right?" Said girl nodded mutely. "My Nephew is so manly: a noble samurai. And I taught my niece everything she knows about being a proper lady and a good wife." She said, ending with a eerie laugh that everyone had heard from said niece. Ranma fainted dead away, with Akane not far behind her. Nodoka continued, "I can just imagine how well my husband must have trained my son. He will a be a true heir to the Kuno clan." She finished with another laugh.

One tense hour of pleasantries later (Ranma and Akane having disappeared after waking up) Nodoka had left, asking them to notify her if her son and husband returned. And the Tendo household was gathered around the table for a meeting. Both Saotomes still in their cursed forms. Ranma was unusually quiet and appeared to be recovering from shock.

"Well Saotome," Nabiki started out the conversation. "Would you care to explain that for us?"

It started years ago when I met Nodoka. the depressed panda wrote. flip I was originally interested in her only for her money. flip Even then she was going on about honor and all sorts of garbage like that. flip I didn't realize how just out of it she was at the time. flip Long story short, I fell in love with her and we were married. flip It wasn't until I met her brother that everything fell into place. flip My wife wasn't just eccentric, she was actually insane! flip but by this point, I was resigned to my fate. flip Besides, I was still rich. flip It wasn't until I saw how she was trying to raise our child that I decided it was time to actually escape. flip If I hadn't gotten us out of there the Ranma would have been raised like that Tatawaki boy.

Everyone shuddered at that thought. Nabiki once again broke the silence. "So what about this pact?"

In order to get away, I convinced Nodoka that she would coddle the boy if we stayed. flip So in order to let me take him, she made us sign that pledge. flip Either I would raise Ranma to be a 'man among men' or we would commit seppuku. flip And she will make us go through with it flip But it was the only way to get away from them. flip I trained ranma in every way I could think of to try to make him 'manly', but…

"But now I turn inta a girl with a splash of water." Ranma said bitterly.

Son, I'm sorry.

Ranma rose from his seat and headed for the yard. "I need ta think."

He stopped at the door. "Pop… Thanks." He said sincerely before exiting.

Around dinnertime Akane went up to the roof to check on Ranma. She found her laying on her back staring at the sky.

"Hey, Akane." She commented weakly.

"Are you okay?" She asked as she sat down beside her.

"I dunno…"

"… I can only imagine what it must be like."

The bitterness came back into Ranma's voice. "To be related to psychos. To know that insanity doesn't just run in the family, it sprints. To finally meet my mother after all these years and find out she's not the kind loving person I imagined. To know that no matter how lousy my pop was as a parent, that he was doing me a favor by keepin' me away from my mother… To know that my own mother would kill me if because of somethin' I have no control of." She finished quietly.

Akane fought down the urge to lash outatRanma's tone. Instead, Akane just pulled the smaller girl into a hug as her eyes watered. "It'll be alright. We'll find some way out of this."

"Why do you even care? Wouldn't you be happier if I was gone? No more arranged marriage, no more fights, no more pathetic fiancé who's a girl half the time, no more-"

Akane put a finger on Ranma's lips. "I don't care. I don't care that you're a girl half the time. I don't care that you get into all those fights. Heck, they're even fun sometimes. And I don't care that it's an arranged marriage… at least not anymore."

Ranma just listened as Akanestarted rambling. "Sure we started off on the wrong foot, I was upset that I was being forced into marrying what I thought was another pervert, and I took it out on you. If I had just thought about it I would have realized that you had about as much choice as I did. I even offered to be your friend, and I betrayed you because I thought you'd tricked me. I'm sorry I couldn't be more understanding. All this time I was taking my anger out on you. Sure, you can be a jerk sometimes, but that's the way you were raised. Trouble or not, you've helped us so much now…. And I don't know what I'd do without you." She said as she started crying on Ranma's shoulder.

"Akane…"

"I'm sorry." She said as she tried to compose herself

Ranma sighed, "I'm as much ta blame as you are. I know I didn't make it any easier. All I ever did was insult ya. I was too much of an idiot ta see that it hurt ya so much. Whenever I was uncomfortable I'd just insult somethin. My ego would keep me from actually bein' nice to ya. It woulda been like givin' in. I was stupid. I never even told ya how much I like ya. I'm the one who should be apologizing."

Akane put her arms around the smaller girl. "I think we were both wrong." She sighed. "So Ranma, want to be friends."

"I'd like that… You uncute tomboy." He finished affectionately.

"Pervert." She returned.

"…"

"…"

"Hey Ranma?"

"Yeah?"

"Could you do me a favor?"

"What kinda favor?"

"Could you actually start training me? I'm getting tired of you bailing me out of messes all the time."

"I dunno, I usually get a good workout out of it." Akane proceeded to hit her shoulder. "Ow, I'm kiddin, I'm kiddin! Seriously though, I'll do it, but you have to promise me you're gonna work on your temper problem."

"I do NOT have a... oh...."

"If you can try to control those then i'll train ya."

"Deal!"

"Deal! We start in the morning."

"…"

"…"

"So, any ideas?"

"Huh?"

"About your mom."

"Not really. I mean, not only do I haveta not show her my curse, but I haveta act like kuno does about girls and she expects me to be some kinda sorceror. I dunno what I'm going to do."

Akane giggled.

"What's so funny?"

"Ranma, a lot of your abilities could be mistaken for magic. You can create tornados, shoot blasts of energy and vacuum blades, turn invisible, immobilize people with a few touches…" Akane trailed off getting a thoughtful look on her face, followed shortly by a grin, which quickly turned into an almost evil looking smirk.

Ranma, who had turned to look when Akane stopped speaking, was starting to seriously worry about her fiance. "Um, Akane, are you alright?"

"Ranma I think I have an idea…"

"What kind of idea?"

"Your mother is expecting a sorcerer, and I'd hate to disappoint her. So here's what we're going to do: you're going to be a sorcerer. A very kunoesque sorcerer." She said, still chuckling evilly.

"Say what!?"

"You're going to pretend to be a Kuno. With a little creative use of you're abilities, you should be able to pass yourself off as a sorcerer easily. It'll satisfy you're mother and maybe even deal with a few annoyances."

Ranma wasn't sure if she meant his rivals or his fiancés, but he really wasn't in the mood to ask. Now that he thought about it, it did sound like a good plan. Ranma began to mirror Akane's smile. "What did ya have in mind?" he said as he began rubbing his hands together.

"First your powers."

"Right!"

"For starters, You can use you're moko takabisha for energy blasts and stuff."

"I could combine that with the soul of ice for a kinda icy attack…"

"You could use the Umisenken to become invisible."

"And if I could mess with the hiryu shoten ha I could have wind powers."

"Hey, have you learned the hidden weapons technique?"

"It's a bit drainin', but it could be useful."

"And do you know how to do my dad's demon head technique?"

"Are you kiddin'? I learned how to do that ages ago. I just don't like using it. It's like somethin' a bully would resort to."

"Yeah, but if you worked on it you could make illusions."

"Yeah!"

"You could also make 'curses' with shiatsu points and your katchu tenshin amaguriken."

"Hey, rember Ryoga's iron cloth technique?"

"Or Miss Hinako's technique?"

"This could work Akane!"

"Of course it will!"

"I shall be the Sorcerous Ranma Saotme!" He said in a Kunoesque voice.

"We'll have to see if we can find you some dark robes."

"And a staff like the old goul has."

"And finally to top it all off…"

"Yeah?"

"You're going to cast a spell on me and the pigtailed girl." She said putting her arm back around the redhead. "Not only will we be hopelessly in love with you, but you'll have cast a spell on us to make us perform all sorts of lewd acts with each other." As she said this she reached down and kissed the redhead.

"Wow!" Ranma exclaimed as they came up for breath. "I think I'm gonna like this plan. But are you sure you don't mind?" She said motioning at her body.

"Hey, you're not the only pervert around here." She said finishing with a quick peck. "And together, we shall show the world the true terror of our master:The Sorcerous Ranma Satome! OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!" She laughed creepily, joined shortly by said sorcerer's alter-ego in a bought of laughter that would make Kodachi cower in fear.

Ranma suddenly leaned down over the railing. "Get all that Nabiki?"

The Mercenary in question was standing at the window with a notepad in her hands. "Gah!"

"We'll be counting on you to spread this around the school. I'm a Kuno and I've gone crazy and think I am a Sorceror."

"And why should I help you in this idiocy." She said regaining her composure.

"Aside from making a lot of money off this whole thing, when I get my inheritance from my mom, I'll need someone to manage things. And you being my sister-in-law…"

Ranma and Akane would later swear that they saw dollar signs appear in Nabiki's eyes for a second. "Saotome, you have yourself a deal! When do you want to start?"

"Gimme a few weeks. I need to work on a few techniques."

"And start training me." Akane put in

"And then, look out world! Here comes the new Ranma!"

To be continued…

Author's notes:
I've always read stories where Genma was the evil parent and Nodaka was the good one, but I haven't seen any where it was reversed. So that's where the inspiration came from for this.

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