Rules of the Games

Rules of the Games is written by Trent O'Donoghue and began online publication in ????. It was completed in ????.
==Description==
==Plot==
===Level 1, Beginner===
Ranma Saotome in his female form enters the change room part of the furo area at the Tendo Dojo, only to then walk in on Akane Tendo as she is climbing out of the furo. Ranma is duly punished for this transgression. Later Ranma is walking on the top of the fence on the way to school and he tries to distract Akane from his anger over that furo incident by talking about her cooking. Shampoo interrupts and Akane stomps off to school, leaving Ranma to get away from Shampoo by himself. He does so and has another verbal argument with Akane that end with her almost affectionately calling him an idiot and a half-hearted attempt to bash him. In class Hiroshi is almost a victim of Hinako Ninomiya's style of discipline over a folder which he dropped. Luckily for him, Ranma snatched up the spilled contents before anyone got to see them and when he gets a chance in class Ranma takes a look at what Hiroshi was trying to protect. It is mainly a collection of drawings and photos of girls in very little clothing, along with stories and jokes. What catches Ranma's imagination is a page called "The Rules". This turns out to be a list of 13 rules which Ranma tries to understand as best he can with his limited experience of interacting with women. Later at the end of school Sayuri and Yuka ask Akane if she wants to go to a tea house to chat and Ranma says she has nothing to rush home for, forgetting that Nodoka Saotome and Kasumi Tendo were to teach Akane how to cook a new dish. She turns down the girls and grabs Ranma, dragging him out of school and berating him for insulting her cooking before she has even tried the dish. Outside Akane tells him off for taking so long to spot her signally him that she needed help to escape her two friends. At this point Tatewaki Kuno appears and Akane appears to be losing her fight with him so Ranma steps in. She tells Ranma off for finishing her fight and as she walks home ion a huff Ranma makes the mistake of asking her what is (something mentioned in "The Rules"). Back at the dojo Nodoka and Kasumi are now teaching Akane the new recipe and leaving Akane in Kasumi's hands, she goes to talk to Ranma who is busy practising. She asks Ranma why Akane was so angry when the pair got home from school and Ranma explains, leaving Nodoka to tell him PMS was invented by weak men. At dinner Ranma tries Akane's food and passes out. Then in his bedroom, when he is almost unconscious from the pain, Akane tells Ranma off for eating the food and saying if he keeps it up the fathers might suspect she can cook properly.
The next morning Ranma stumbles into the furo area for a soak only to come across his undressed fiancée again. This time however she blushes so that he has time to escape her wrath. On the way to school, as Akane talks with Yuka, Ranma ponders Akane's behaviour. She gave him the cold shoulder a breakfast but once away from the dojo acted as if it had never happened. Just before they enter the school she asks him how he thought she was with the fight they had over the furo incident. Again Kuno attacks, but this time after Ranma deals with him Akane gives him a wink. At the end of school that Saturday, Ukyo Kuonji approaches Ranma and Akane to invite Ranma to her restaurant. Ranma asks Akane if she wants to go but she stomps off and Ranma turns Ukyo down. Back at home the fathers round on Ranma for flirting with his other fiancées, but he deflects Soun Tendo's ire onto his father. Ranma and Akane spar in the dojo and something he says to her reminds him of another of "The Rules", a distraction that almost has him lose the spar. At the meal Ranma gets a couple of lessons in dealing with women before being roped into looking for P-chan. Later the pair have stopped looking and Akane has found a poster for a fair when Kodachi Kuno drops by briefly to entice Ranma to her bedroom. They then find P-chan and when Akane states she didn't expect to find him, Ranma's mind puts together some pieces and he realises that looking for P-chan was just an excuse Akane used so that they could walk closely together around Nerima without raising the suspicion of their fathers. Taking a gamble, Ranma puts his arm around Akane's shoulder and she doesn't make him remove it, leaving Ryoga to wonder when the pair became that close.
===Level 2, Intermediate===
Ranma is smiling as he goes through a kata, having come to the conclusion that Akane must like him if the events of their hunt for P-chan are correct. His mother comes out to interrupt him and asks him to take Akane to the fair to find out if it is any good, as some in the family don't wish to go. She forces Ranma's hand by saying if he doesn't she'll have to spend some more time teaching Akane to cook. Ranma agrees as long as it is not called a "date" and Nodoka tells him if Akane comes back from the fair with a smile on her face she'll will have a surprise present for Ranma. Akane agrees to go after lunch, a lunch at which Nodoka begins to suspect P-chan isn't a normal pet and happily observes Ranma sneaks glances at Akane. As the couple depart for the fair Nodoka spots further evidence that Akane likes her son more than she lets on. At the ticket counter the seller refers to Akane as Ranma's girlfriend and when Ranma agrees to this rather than deny he gets a sly smile from Akane and she lets him put his arm around her shoulder again. Once in the fair he tries to drop his arm in fear of being spotted by classmates, but Akane refuses to let him move his arm. When Ranma helps Akane win a prize at one of the booths they end up in a discussion about what Ranma knows, the boy revealing his father uses them as throwing control training. She gets him to win a stuffed pink piglet toy and Ranma explains some of the techniques as he does so. Back the the Tendo Dojo Ryoga is thinking about Akari Unryuu when Nodoka comes outside with a dog kennel with "P-chan" written on it. She explains to the pet that he can't sleep in Akane's bed any longer as the couple are getting closer and a wedding can't be too far off. As she goes to put him in the kennel she notes how grubby P-chan is and wonders if she and Kasumi should give the pig a bath.
After a ride on a rollercoaster, during which Akane clung to Ranma leaving him red-faced, Akane sends him in search of candyfloss. On his return he finds a mime acting out a proposal to Akane and gets angry, which leads to him ending up in a challenge against the mime. The challenge of mini acting gets more and more elaborate till Ranma finally "wins" by turning into a woman, making it look as though he switched places with someone else. While Akane works to remove Ranma's mime facepaint in the restrooms, Nodoka and Kasumi are closer to getting the struggling P-chan clean with hot water when P-chan makes an escape attempt. In the restrooms Ranma and Akane almost kiss, only to interrupted by a gaggle of schoolgirls coming in. Akane decides that the girls mean others from Furinkan High School will now be at the fair and now is the perfect time for her and Ranma to leave and go see a movie. A muddy Nodoka is led to the furo by Kasumi after P-chan escaped, only for Nodoka to discover Ryoga in the furo. At the cinema Akane leads Ranma to the back row and it takes Ranma a while to realise that Akane is thinking and treating them like a couple. As the movie starts Ranma takes his cues from another couple in the same row and eventually puts his arm around Akane's shoulders. He then tries to work up the courage to try and kiss her as the other couple were doing and fails two times that to various issues. When a third time looks like it might result in a kiss the other couple are having a scuffle, forcing Ranma to lean over and tell the male to back off if the lady says "no". This results in the couple being revealed as Daisuke and Yuka, who now recognise Ranma and Akane.
===Level 3, Advanced===
The movie is over and the two boys are waiting for the girls to return from the toilets. On the way home Ranma tells Daisuke he thinks Akane let him off lightly given her dislike of pushy perverts, while the two girls talk and giggle ahead of them. The couples part and outside the dojo Ranma asks Akane if she enjoyed the date, to which she replies she did but she doesn't kiss on first dates. She goes ahead of him into the dojo compound, shouting about how Ranma ruined the trip to the fair by picking fights and inviting his friends along. This leave Ranma wondering how he is supposed to go in and face the music. Ranma sneaks in to learn from Nabiki Tendo that Soun has gone to bed and his parent aren't there. Akane tells Nabiki about the fair and her prize stuffed pig while Nabiki in turn explains about the unidentified pervert in the furo that Nodoka came across. Akane fumes over Nodoka's double standards about peeping toms and Nabiki gives Ranma something Nodoka managed to snatch off the unidentified pervert, a tiger print bandana. The following morning Ranma is headed to the furo when he hears splashing inside. Figuring it to be Akane he briefly ponder whether or not to go in, sit unsure of any of the rules. He goes in, shirt over his head as if he'd didn't know anyone was in there, only to walk in on Nabiki. Nabiki charges him some money for walking in on her and Ranma retreats only to run into Akane who wants to know if he is finished with the furo. She learns he walked in on Nabiki, but doesn't blow up on him.
Later at school the boy's football team is to play against the St Bachas Boys High School team and as Ranma half listens to the pep talks of the two coaches, Sayuri spots a non-vocal conversation between Akane and Yuka and plans to find out what is going on. Daisuke arranges for Ranma and Akane to be alone in the sports equipment shed after the game and when they kiss they are photographed doing so through a window. Akane sends Ranma after the photographer who turns out to be Hikaru Gosunkugi. Before he can do anything Hinako intervenes and drains the pair of them. Ranma manages to stumble away with the offending photo before Hinako could see it, only to run into Kuno. Kuno believes the photo to show ranma cheating on Akane and is determined to expose it to force Ranma in to marriage and free Akane. Kuno's father, the principal, interferes and get a gold of the photo. Ranma stops the man by telling Kuno it is a naked photo of the pig-tailed girl and while the Kunos fight he snatches back the photo. However the mention of nude photos has brought Happosai to the scene and Ranma loses the photo to the principal again during the scuffle. The explosion of one of the principal's coconuts has attracted the attention of Shampoo and Mousse while out on deliveries and they head towards the school.
The arrival of Kodachi distracts Happosai and Ranma meanwhile reacquires the photo from the principal. Ukyo and Hinako arrive and Ukyo asks about the photo, before she and Kodachi fight over kissing Ranma. With Akane and Nabiki's help is is able to avoid those after him for the photo and pass it on to Nabiki without being noticed. Ranma and Akane then act like the photo was of another couple and Akane apologises for hitting him, before Akane sets Hinako on Kodachi by pointing out she isn't a student of the school and therefore must be truant. Later when Nabiki goes to look at the photo Ranma demands it back and threatens her with a principal-pleasing haircut if he doesn't get it. Nabiki proceeds to give Ranma a mini-lesson in negotiation using martial arts as a metaphor. Nabiki gets to see the photo and is angry over what might have been revealed. Shampoo and Mousse arrive and Mousse ends up with the photo, but broadcasts through a megaphone that it is out of focus (as he isn't wearing his glasses). Ranma tackles him before he realises this and things become even more chaotic. With the photo gone people return to their routines, except for poor Ranma as Ryoga turns up blaming Ranma for hi mother thinking Ryoga is a sex fiend. Later Ranma tries to put the lost boy on a train that will take him to Akari, but he gets lost and Akane find P-chan instead. Ranma and Akane have now worked out who Nodoka walked in on in the furo and Akane asks about the photo. Ranma reveals that during the chaos he smuggled it into Akane's bra. As they walk home Ranma comes to the conclusion that a game doesn't have to have an end and the journey should be fun. With that in mind he tells Akane that he's going to train P-chan to accept not being able to sleep in her bed for much longer by sneaking in every night and giving Akane a little "lip service".
==Notes==
*Based on an idea by Tom Wrensch.
==See Also==
==External Links==
*Rules of the Games at Fanfiction.net
*Rules of the Games at the Internet Archive record of Trent O'Donoghue's Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction Page
==References==