** Family Stone ** ** by Sam A. J. Halsall ** Disclaimer: All prominent characters in this work are property of Rumiko Takahashi. This is a work of fan-fiction, written for entertainment rather than profit, and is not meant to infringe upon Ms. Takahashi's intellectual rights. Warning: This is a lemon story, and therefore contains elements intended for an adult audience only. If you are under the age of majority in your place of residence, read no further. Production note: Text found between asterisks (*) should be read as italicized. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A typical morning at Furinkan High was about to start. Assorted birds sat in assorted trees and chirped out assorted "good morning" songs. The sun sat heavily in the sky, as though it were there only grudgingly, but was still prepared to do the thankless job it had. Eventually, the students began to arrive. Laughing schoolgirls, boys venting repressed homosexuality in a vartiety of ways -- a perfectly normal school day. In the shadow of a tree near the edge of the school's baseball diamond, a solitary figure stood and watched, a part of the routine yet untouched by it. He waited, his eyes ever alert for the arrival of the one he knew could make his life worth the struggle. Okay, one of two. But this morning... There! She was making her way through the gate, joking with her sister. His heart seemed to stop beating, and he prayed to a god he wasn't sure existed that today would be the day, that today she would see the love in his heart and realize that she simply must return it. Summoning up all his courage, he bolted from his lurking place and sprinted toward the object of his desire, shouting in a voice he wanted the whole world to hear: "Akane Tendo! I would date with you!" The next thing Tatewaki Kuno saw was a blinding flash of light. Blinding, because his eyes shut tight as he flew through the air several feet from the force of Akane Tendo's uppercut. His ears, however, were open for business, and had no trouble picking out Akane's reply: "Get lost, Kuno! Don't you ever learn?" *Good question*, he thought. He couldn't count the number of Akane's rejections on his fingers. Or, for that matter, the fingers of the entire student body. Kuno crash-landed on his back after seven seconds of flight, leaving a ten-foot long furrow in the field. For a while longer, he kept his eyes shut tight, as though the students might somehow fail to see his humiliation if he couldn't see them. Then, the final crowning insult. An all-too-familiar voice saying his name. "Honestly, Kuno baby, you are just so hopeless." He couldn't keep a groan from heaving its way out of his throat. Ranma Saotome might be his arch-enemy, but no one actually pissed him off as much as Nabiki Tendo. He opened his eyes to see the Marilyn Quayle hair and huge brown eyes he had come to loathe, and dragged himself to his feet. "Here, Kuno, clean yourself up." Nabiki tossed a tissue at him and turned on her heel to head for the school. Had she turned, she would have seen the object of her scorn crumple to his knees. Not out of a sudden relapse, but out of depression. *Kuno, Kuno, Kuno. I have a name, for Christ's sake.* Tatewaki struggled back to his feet and trudged toward the school, knowing he wouldn't make it by the final bell and not caring either. On the other side of the school, Tatewaki's raven-haired sister was beating her head against a similar brick wall. She was running across the grounds of Furinkan High, a freshly-baked pie in her hands. "Please, Ranma, I made it just for you!" The object of her affection, the aforementioned Ranma Saotome, was fleeing as though Satan himself were in hot pursuit. "I told ya, I'm not interested!" "Ranma sweetums!!" What was wrong with him? With her? Why the hell wouldn't he just taste it? Surely, he had to know she wouldn't stoop to lacing it with weird drugs anymore -- those days were in the past. As the final school bell rang, Ranma dove forward onto a short wall in front of the school. Using it as a springboard, he launched himself through an open window on the second floor. Just before he disappeared inside, he twisted his body to face her. Pulling his mouth as wide as it would go, he stuck out his tongue. Then he was gone. Like her brother, Kodachi Kuno collapsed to her knees in a cloud of dust. Her tears made little craters in the dirt beneath her. Why? Why did he always treat her like this? She was just a game to him, a minor nuisance in his day-to-day life. Couldn't he see what he meant to her? The one shining beacon of joy in a life lived not for herself, not for another, but for a name. The House of Kuno. Ignoring the faces that peered at her from the windows of Furinkan High, Kodachi got up and struck out toward her own school. At least at St. Bacchus' School for Girls, she would be surrounded by those who feared and looked up to her, who had no clue that she even had a weakness. Lunch time. The halls of Furinkan High filled with students. Tatewaki sat alone in a corner of the cafeteria, chewing on food that any epicure would have given his tongue to taste but once. Every morsel caught in his throat, as though he were trying to eat fiberglass. All he wanted was to finish the day, go home, and put it all behind him. A rustle of clothing above him sent his combat senses into full alert. Instinctively, he slid off his seat and hit the floor as something swooshed past where his head had been mere moments before. Tatewaki was on his feet in an instant, weapon drawn and at the ready. And found himself looking at his father, swinging from what appeared to be a vine. "Aloooooohaaaaaaa!!!" *This is not happening.* Tatewaki groaned as his father dropped from the vine and landed on the table. Everyone in the cafeteria turned to gaze at this latest spectacle. Principal Kuno's antics were legendary at the school. He'd returned from a three-year holiday in Hawaii firmly convinced he was a native of the American islands. Among his pet peeves was the variety of hairstyles worn by Furinkan High students, and he had tried on many occasions to shave their heads. And Tatewaki was the most common target. "Now, Tacchi, you no wan' be disobeyin' yo fatha', now, no? Get yo hair cut nice an' short. You no wan' make the Kuno name look bad." The principal brandished clippers, which gleamed almost as brightly as his teeth. *Is this for real? A man with a stereotyped fake accent and a palm tree on his head is telling ME not to make the family look bad?!?* Tears of shame and rage burned in Tatewaki's eyes, until he could take no more. "Silence, cur! Now you pay!" His sword became a furious blur, sending the Principal flying through a glass window out into the courtyard. The show over, the other students started to talk idly about the fight, as though it were just another squabble. Rarely did a day go by at Furinkan where someone didn't settle a score in martial arts combat. None of them realized what had just taken place. Tatewaki Kuno had just physically and spiritually rejected his father, a father whose madness had eclipsed any hope of a normal childhood, a father who had been overseas when his son first began his journey to manhood, a father whose name he had never known. When Tatewaki arrived home that night, the Kuno estate was quiet. Principal Kuno usually spent the nights in his office, a vast expanse of simulated Hawaiian beachfront. Sasuke, the family retainer, was off spying at the Tendo Dojo, trying to find Ranma's weakness or see one of the females undressing or something. And Kodachi would no doubt be right there along with him, trying to catch a glimpse of Ranma and find a way to win him over. Tatewaki cast aside his sword and coat almost morosely and clasped his hand to his head. All he could feel was overwhelming fatigue, though not of the physical variety. The only thing he wanted right then, oddly enough, was chocolate. Normally, he didn't go for sweet stuff, but he really wanted chocolate at that moment. Not a problem; there was always some in the kitchen cupboards. He made his way to the kitchen and, finding it dark, flipped on the light. "Do you mind, brother dear? Turn that off." Surprised, Tatewaki automatically turned the lightswitch back off, plunging the room once more into inky black. What on Earth was Kodachi doing home? He took a candle from a drawer just beside the doorway and lit it with a match from the same drawer. By the flickering candlelight, he could see his sister kneeling at the dining room table. In fact, she was partly slumped over it. A bottle of sake sat on the table in front of her, and it was from this that Kodachi poured herself a drink. She downed the cup in one gulp, gasped softly, and got herself a refill. Tatewaki stared. He had never seen her drink more than a single cup of anything in one sitting before. Yet she had clearly almost finished off the entire bottle. No wonder she didn't want the lights on! "Sister! What in all the nether hells...?" "Oh shut up, brother dear. It's just been that kind of day." The words triggered a most unwelcome memory. Tatewaki, age 9, coming into the kitchen and finding his mother lying on the floor taking swigs from a bottle. Tatewaki asking what she was doing. His mother replying, "It's just been that kind of day." That was the first time he'd heard those words. It would not be the last. As his father's madness turned his mother into a poorly-focused image of her former self, he would hear those words more and more often until the day his mother eventually fled and his father disappeared to America for three years. The clink of pottery and glass snapped him back to the present. Kodachi was handing him a cup of sake. "And how was your day?" "That kind." He accepted the cup with his free hand. "Tell me all about it, Kuno." *God damn it!* Even here! Even in his own home, with his own sister, he was still nothing but an extension of the Kuno name, the word made flesh. He sat -- more accurately, collapsed -- at the table and stuck the candle in a nearby holder. "The usual horror show. Akane Tendo once again spurns me. As for the pig-tailed girl, one might as well persue the very air. Am I to assume from this sudden urge to imbibe that Ranma Saotome yet eludes your grasp?" He'd meant it as a simple question, but something in his tone must have sent the wrong signal. Kodachi fell facedown onto the table and sobbed into her arms. "Shit! I mean, sister, please, don't..." He realized the futility of his words before he'd even said half of them. Instead, he shuffled around to the other side of the table and held her to him. She, in turn, clutched his robe in her fists as though terrified he might try to leave. Through her sobs, she managed to ask the most remarkable question Tatewaki had ever heard in his life: "Brother dear... why... why did this happen to us?" *Us.* And in what an alcoholic would call a moment of clarity, Tatewaki realized what that word meant. *Us.* All that he had endured, the unrequited desires, the pointless rivalries, the name "Kuno" forced on him like a brand -- all this was shared by another. The very one he had feuded with over... over what? The nonexistent love of their mutant father and the Invisible Woman? *Us.* As Kodachi's sobs began to subside, Tatewaki brushed away her tears with his fingertips. He could hear her breath catch briefly every so often as it returned to normal. She looked up at him, and something in her eyes seemed to change. When Kodachi took Tatewaki's hand in hers and licked the salty tears from his fingers, it struck him as odd. Slightly surreal. And when she pulled his mouth to hers and sucked the air from his body, the feeling only intensified. *OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD* He saw it in his mind's eye, as though his consciousness couldn't deal with what his body was doing and had elected instead to watch the goings-on from across the room. What the hell was he doing? Every nerve in his body was screaming. Arguments formed into orderly ranks behind Tatewaki's lips. Kodachi broke the kiss and looked again into her brother's eyes. Her face was that of a criminal hearing a policeman yell, "Freeze!" and realizing he faces the gas chamber. "Brother, I-- I'm sorry. I--" All Tatewaki's resistence faded in that instant. In her eyes, he could somehow see every injustice Kodachi had ever suffered, played out in front of him like home movies. Their mother had rejected her. Their father had rejected her. Ranma Saotome rejected her daily. Could Tatewaki add his own name to that list when he now knew that they were an army of two against a world that didn't give a fuck about them? He pulled her to him and returned the kiss. This time it was Kodachi who was shocked, but Tatewaki knew why. The prisoner had been pardoned. When they both came up for air, Kodachi stood and cast off her school uniform in one practiced motion, leaving only the black bodysuit she favored for most activities. Never taking her eyes from her brother's, she slid the nylon garment from her shoulders and pulled it down to her ankles. She kicked it to one side and stood naked in front of Tatewaki. He'd seen her in the raw before on too many occasions to count. As recently as last week, in fact. It had never made any difference to him. But now, in this context, the sight of her body sent a shiver radiating from his shoulders through the rest of him. He felt himself salivating slightly. The craving from before returned, only now he wanted to taste something other than chocolate. He reached behind Kodachi, placing his hands on her tight gymnast's buttocks, and pulled her closer. From his kneeling position, his face was perfectly lined up with her breasts, which seemed to glow in the candlelight. Kodachi gasped quietly as he drew his tongue along the cleft between them. Then he took one nipple in his mouth, nibbling gently at it while he tugged at the other with finger and thumb. When he felt she was ready to go further, he pulled away from her, leaving a glistening strand from her nipple to his lip. He undid the belt of his robe and stood up. Kodachi approached him cautiously, and removed his robe so slowly that he had to force himself not to tear it off himself. Finally she pulled it off him, and stood transfixed at the sight of his swelling member. She leaned forward and draped her arms around his shoulders, letting his robe flutter to the ground behind her. Then, slowly, she slid down the front of his body, the friction fueling both of them. She ended up on her knees in front of him. Tatewaki had experienced more than a little female companionship in his time. A prostitute in Tokyo. A new recruit to the Kendo Club who had giggled into her hand every time she'd heard the word "sword". A bungled, drunken encounter with Nabiki Tendo which they'd both agreed never to speak of again. Their faces flashed briefly in Tatewaki's mind as Kodachi brought his cock to her lips. He knew that she knew nothing of sex but that which she had overheard from the other gymnasts. He vowed to make her first time as special as he possibly could. Suddenly, his body went supernova as Kodachi took him into her mouth. Her tongue wrapped around his shaft, coating his organ in warm saliva. Bobbing her head slightly, she brought Tatewaki's cock to full rise. *My God, she's gifted!* he thought. Tatewaki knew he could only take a few more seconds of this before climax, so he reluctantly drew away from his sister's mouth. He knelt by the table and swept everything from it with one arm. With a little pressure, he guided Kodachi to a seated position on the edge of the table in front of him. He kissed her again by way of reassuring her that she was doing just fine. Then he parted her thighs and began to work on her with his tongue. Her thin, black fur tickled his nose and his sinuses filled with the scent of her arousal as he flicked gently at her swelling clit. Kodachi began to wriggle slightly and breathe heavily, and she wrapped her legs around her brother's head to urge him onward. It occured to him to wonder what this must feel like for her, a girl who didn't so much as masturbate, to feel this for the first time. Slowly, he felt her pull away from him, and he took the hint. She sat up and kissed him, just as he had done with her after her oral attentions. The taste of her sex was on his breath, and her juices coated his lips. It seemed to Tatewaki that Kodachi enjoyed sampling this new flavor. Then she broke the kiss, lay back on the table, and said, "Please, brother dear, I need you in me..." It was not the sort of request he was about to refuse. Especially with the way his cock was throbbing, begging for release. As he made to enter her, he noticed the way she was lying. Her eyes were closed, and her hands were above her head, her wrists crossed. He understood. *Poor girl, you don't quite want to be responsible for this, do you?" Which was fine, since he was more then prepared to do so. There was no rope handy, but the sash from his discarded robe would work nicely. Tatewaki retrieved the fabric strip and brought it above his sister's head. Her eyes opened as it touched her wrists, and Tatewaki asked permission with his eyes. Permission was granted in the same way. Tatewaki quickly bound Kodachi's wrists to the leg of the table. She was by no means helpless -- this was, after all, the most skilled martial artist at St. Bacchus' school for girls, and breaking her bonds would take no effort whatsoever -- but the point was made: Tatewaki would take whatever consequences came of this night. Placing his hands on her knees, he parted her thighs once more. He knelt on the table between her splayed legs and let her gaze at his ready member for a few moments. Then he leaned forward and slid the head of it into her. She gasped, not in pain but in amazement. Tatewaki remembered losing his virginity, and smiled to himself. Then he slowly buried his shaft in Kodachi. There was no resistence to speak of -- Kodachi's years of athletics had left her hymen a mere memory, and she was so excited that her virgin tunnel took her brother's length easily. With every thrust, Tatewaki ground his hips into Kodachi's puffy clit, arousing her further. He reached over her and took her nipples in his thumbs and fingers, pinching them slightly. "Harder!" she gasped, and he obeyed. Kodachi suddenly stopped breathing, and Tatewaki realized she was on the verge of orgasm. He started to slam into her harder, battering her clit with all the force he could muster. Kodachi began gasping. "Oh God... Oh God... aaaaAAAAAHHH!" She shuddered underneath her brother, her lips forming a perfect circle as she rode the waves of her very first climax. As he watched Kodachi come, Tatewaki felt a familiar tightening in his loins. Since he knew his sister didn't use birth control, he pulled his cock out of her and stroked it, preparing to splash her breasts with his seed. "Sister, I'm coming!" "Let me taste you!" she begged. She opened her mouth wide and slid her tongue back as Tatewaki stood quickly and bent over her face. The pressure reached breaking point. Tatewaki shouted in pure joy as his semen shot from his rod. He watched in fascination as his come disappeared into his sister's mouth and coated her lips. When he was completely spent, he slipped his cock into Kodachi's mouth. She closed her lips around it, tasting their combined juices as she sucked the last of his seed from him. He knelt beside her and untied her hands. She slid off the table limply into his lap, and they lay there in each other's arms for what felt like hours. After a while, Tatewaki noticed that his sister seemed to be deep in thought. "What are you thinking of?" "Well, brother, it's about Ranma..." Tatewaki had been thinking about Ranma as well; he'd been entertaining fantasies of ripping Ranma's head from his shoulders for what the bastard had done to Kodachi. He stifled an evil laugh. "Don't worry, I've got plans for Mr. Saotome. I believe the colloquial expression is 'opening up a six-pack of whoop-ass'." Kodachi laughed. Not her usual maniacal shriek, but a quiet, peaceful giggle. "No, silly Kuno. I meant, I wonder if he'll miss my attentions?" Tatewaki stroked her hair with the back of one hand. "Kodachi, may I ask a favour?" "Of course! You need but say it." He smiled and leaned forward to kiss her. "Call me Tacchi." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ THE END ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Afterword: I have only seen and read the English versions of Ranma 1/2. I therefore have no idea whether Principal Kuno's name is ever revealed or if Mrs. Kuno appears at some point. If I have contradicted continuity, sorry -- mea maxima culpa. Before anyone asks, no, I do not have any sort of incest fetish. It's just that whenever the Ranma cast are broken off into hetero couples, Kuno usually ends up with Nabiki, and I've only ever seen Kodachi paired with Sasuke, of all people! In this case, it seems to me that Kuno and Kodachi are each other's true soulmate, and we'll just have to check our prejudices at the door. This is my second fanfic. Thanks to all who wrote to me about "Christmas at Sub-Zero" -- looks like those Writing courses paid off! If you have questions or comments about this one, write me at AlmightyV@HotMail.COM. And for anyone who's wondering, I do usually refer to Tatewaki as Kuno. It's just that given the theme of the story, I felt it made more sense to call him by his given name. My apologies to anyone who found it awkward.