What Women Want picks up the story started in More a Woman by Christopher Angel. If you're not familiar with his fanfic, stop right now and go read it or you'll be more lost than Ryoga. Angel's storyline is used with permission. Ranma 1/2 characters are not. Rights to Ranma 1/2 belong to Takahashi-san, Shogakukan, Kitty, Viz, and countless other entities with the power to sue me for borrowing them for a little while. Please don't -- I'm a starving, penniless otaku!
< > indicates thought
Ranma sat uncomfortably on a bench in the park. Every now and then, he'd wriggle his shoulders or his hips and cast black looks towards the Tendo dojo. <Stupid girl's underwear ... and now I'm stuck wearing this stuff for good. What the hell was I thinkin'?>
He knew, of course, that he'd been thinking of all the times
Akane had malleted him or punted him into orbit because he simply
talked -- or looked -- at Ukyo or Shampoo. He'd been thinking
of all the times Shampoo had attacked Akane to get her out of
the picture. He'd been thinking of all the
times Ukyo had schemed with Ryoga to break off his engagement
to Akane.
Heck, it wasn't like he'd wanted to be engaged! He was only 17. Ten of those years had been spent on the road, with his craven, antisocial idiot of a father for company. He simply wasn't used to all the female attention and problems it caused. All he wanted was a quiet, normal life.
Well, as normal as he could get, what with flying minotaurs and princes of illusion and ghost cats and pogoing mummies. He didn't need a bunch of girls fighting over him on top of all that.
Still, they were all really cute, even Akane, when she smiled. And he was friends with all three. Any one of them would have made him happy, but he'd been too afraid of hurting any of their feelings to make a decision. Now, at least, the decision was in their hands.
He yanked down the hem of his dress and looked longingly at the wide tree branch overhead. Heck, he didn't care if he was a girl now. He was still going to wear his Chinese pants and shirts, and walk on fences, and climb trees. <Geez, look who's the tomboy now.>
The sound of someone clearing his throat caught his attention. Ranma turned and saw a man not 10 feet away, looking at him with a sardonic smile. The man had broad shoulders and muscles Ryoga would envy. His blue-black hair rustled in the breeze, revealing intense brown eyes that bore straight into him.
Ranma gulped as realization struck him. "A-Akane?!"
Akane nodded once, the mysterious smile growing a little larger. Suddenly, from behind Akane, two other figures stepped out: one tall, wiry, with long hair pulled back in a ponytail, the other lithe and sensuous, with long purple hair cascading over the shoulders of silken Chinese robes.
Ranma felt very light headed all of a sudden.
The trio of newcomers advanced toward the stunned redhead.
"It's like this, Ranma," Akane said in a firm baritone. "We came to the conclusion that each of us really does love you and want you."
"That's right, sugar," Ukyo chimed in, his tenor voice not much different from her former alto. "You left us with a really big dilemma."
"And for once, Violent Pervert Girl right," Shampoo added in a surprising bass. "You no tell us make decision. Only Airen choose who will marry."
Ranma's face became very, very pale. "Y-y-you m-mean ..."
Akane nodded. "We shared the Nannichuan and the permanence waters. You're not going to pass the buck to us, Ranma ... you're still going to have to choose. So, who's it going to be?"
"Yeah, Ranchan, who's it going to be?" echoed Ukyo, her ... his arms folder over his now permanently flat chest.
"Airen choose now, yes?" Shampoo added, his robes billowing in the breeze.
Faced with the three handsome men -- his three formerly cute and female fiancees -- Ranma did the only thing he could do. "GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
"Aiya ..."
"Ranchan?"
"Baka!" Akane grumped. "Like fainting'll get her out of this."
Read Bruce A. Munro's postscript to What Women Want, entitled All Too Predictable. Thanks to Bruce for his follow-up and for just plain old actually being inspired enough by something I wrote to pick up a pen (tap a keyboard?) and write something in turn!
C&C welcome at SaotomeRanchan. No flames, please -- I'm as sensitive than Tendo Soun!
Read another alternative ending:
Woman Awaited by Saotome Ranchan
All Too Predictable by Bruce A. Munro
OR go back to More a Woman
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