*sigh* Text limits imposed on the mailer by the size of the memory...
*mutter*
Open the enclosed text file, if you could. Worked on in pure Notepad...
--G. Falconar
-- Listar MIME Decryption --------------
-- Name : FF3CYAN.MID
-- Content: audio/midi
-- CONTENT REMOVED, NOT PLAINTEXT.
-- Listar MIME Decryption --------------
-- Name : ALS3C&C.txt
-- Decode : from quoted-printable...
| Urrgh. Twice as long as expected and half the free time equals three days
| later than planned.
And if half a cat can catch half a mouse in half a minute...
| Apologies for the wait, and I hope you enjoy.
| C&C sil vous plait.
Okay, first, look in your French book. It's s'il vous plait, short for si il vous plait, translating to "if it pleases you", and there's a carat over the 'i' in 'plait'.
Gad, you know there's something wrong with you when you can't even get out of the author's note...
| Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only swinging on
| the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds cleaner than you found
| them and please don't feed the Troll.
|
| *Stars in Their Crown* is copyright Garnet Rogers, off the *Small
| Victories*
| album. I merely borrow its likeness; he does it better.
Hmm... you know, I think I may get into the habit of providing backbeats from here on in. Enclosed is Cayenne's (or Cyan's) theme from Final Fantasy VI (or III). Start it up when Ranma takes his/her first trip through time.
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
| Chapter 3: The Third Day
| Part C: Exploiting the Breach: Telling Stories
Hmm. One of those titles which seems nonsensical and yet, when thought about, makes perfect sense. To wit: Without Jei-san, could anyone believe what Ranma's been through?
| Kodachi had been attended to by a medical team and taken away in an
| ambulance, only one of many that day. Now Nabiki and Yuka were assisting
| the doctors that were dealing with the last of the students injured by
| flying debris. Both had done yeoman service in triaging the wounded and
| traumatized, and in running errands for the medical effort that had, by
| now, sucked in every available doctor or medtech in Nerima ward. Nabiki
| had been especially active in calming and restraining those who had
| been injured most severely while the medics had extracted debris from
| their injuries, or hastily bandaged wounds and set limbs in preparation
| for their transportation to local hospitals.
That last sentence seems a bit awkward. "...been injured most severely while the medics tended to them, extracting..." works a bit better. I think.
| Currently, the two girls were aiding Dr. Tofu by handing him his
| supplies and tools while he aligned and set a number of broken ribs
| belonging to a sophomore who had been trampled and kicked into a corner
| in class 1-D's mad scramble to quit the ground floor during the
| morning's attack.
Dear me. Two long sentences in a row. Ah well, it's your style, hmm?
| Nabiki looked up from the last patient as she was loaded onto a
| stretcher for transport to see a very bedraggled looking Akane come
| into Furinkan's yard, wobbling along behind Ranma , who herself appeared
| less than entirely perky.
Fighting against a nigh-immortal opponent can do that to you.
| The two Martial Artists
They are gods among men, now? I don't think you need the caps, but that's just me.
| came over to where
| Nabiki was standing, Ranma greeting her wearily while Akane stopped
| walking and leaned against Ranma's shoulder, closing her eyes.
|
| "Nabiki-san," Ranma opened the conversation in a tired voice, "I see
| that you've been helping with the wounded. Can you tell me what the
| total casualty list was, please?"
"1500 yen."
Wait, that's cruel even for Nabiki.
| Nabiki rubbed her eyes with blood-stained hands. "I don't know the
| full list yet, Ranma-san. The last I'd heard there were 17 confirmed
| dead. I think the total of seriously injured is going to stop at 40.
| Minor injuries and trauma ...", Nabiki turned to where a clump of pale,
| shaking students were huddling against the wall, seeking comfort in
| numbers, and shrugged.
Umm... don't need the comma after the quote ends.
| Ranma nodded wearily. "You can add two more to the seriously wounded
| list then. Asano-ofukuro was stabbed in the chest by Our Friend, but he
| seems to have missed the heart, and the medics said she has a fair
| chance. Sayuri-chan was strangled, and while she's still alive she
| seems to be in deep coma, at the moment."
|
| Nabiki glanced sideways at Yuka, who was trembling and clenching
| her hands together. Quietly, she asked, "Will she survive long term, do
| you think?"
|
| Ranma rubbed her temples briefly. "There's no good reason why she
| wouldn't, I think. The physical trauma doesn't seem to be too severe.
| What mental trauma she may be suffering, and when she'll wake up...."
| Ranma shrugged in her own turn.
I dunno. I suppose Ranma's inured to death and the like, but a shrug seems an awfully flippant dismissal, particularly considering present company. Then again, perhaps I'm just reading way too much into this.
| Yuka wailed and buried her face in Nabiki's shoulder.
"She.. *sob*... owed me five bucks..."
Obscure MST3K reference, folks.
| Nabiki awkward-
| ly attempted to comfort her and Ranma put a hand on Yuka's shoulder,
| saying, "Don't give up hope Yuka-chan. Sayuri-chan is very brave, and
| the hospital hasn't even begun to care for her yet. And I'm not out of
| resources myself, for that matter. But I think, for now, that it's
| better to let the professionals handle things. And speaking of profess-
| ionals, Nabiki, do you know what happened to Jei's corpse and his
| spear?"
I know the effect you're going for here, but the two seem a bit awkwardly linked. "...did any of them come for Jei's corpse..." provides a more direct link between the "speaking of" and what's spoken of...
| "I just saw ..." Nabiki mused, "Oh yes! A police van came and gather-
| ed it all up and took it away. And I'm just as glad, even dead that
| thing gave me a creepy feeling!"
Umm... "gathered" shouldn't be hyphenatied where you've hyphenated it. "gath-ered" is the proper way to do it, I think.
| "I don't blame you at all Nabiki-san. I just wanted a closer look
| at the spear, but I suppose that I can do that later." She turned her
| hand under her gaze and considered the ichor crusted under the nails.
| "I'd like to get clean first, at least. Do you think you're going to
| need Akane or I around here any more today?"
|
| "No, Ranma, I don't think so. Go on back to the Dojo and see if you
| can get Akane-imouto to go to sleep."
|
| Akane snorted, weakly. "Sleep. Feh. _Bath_."
"Door!"
Obsure David Eddings reference, folks.
But seriously, I can hear her sort of grunting out the monosyllables.
| Ranma grinned, "Indeed. _Bath_. I may even beg one from Kasumi-san
| myself."
|
| Nabiki grinned over her shoulder as she ushered Yuka to someplace to
| sit down, and shook a fist at them. "Use up all the hot water and you
| answer to me," she mock-threatened.
|
| Ranma's grin turned crooked, and she half-turned from her course to
| sweep a bow. "We shall faithfully avoid the loosing of your wrath upon
| us, Nabiki-san." Then she urged the wobbly Akane out the gate, and then
| was gone.
Nice to know that Ranma can still pull off the Cyrano de Bergerac faux-grandiosity after all this.
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| "Taidama!"
Is that how it's spelled? I'm not sure but I think I've seen it as "Tadaima!" elsewhere...
| "Oh, my, I hope that's..." Kasumi had been beside herself with worry.
| Father had managed to tell her that _something_ bad had happened. From
| context she had assumed that something was wrong with Akane or Nabiki,
| but his tears had managed to short out both the TV and the radio, and
| he simply was not coherent enough to tell her what was wrong.
Take off the last six words and that describes, in a nutshell, the character flaws of Soun Tendo.
| She dared
| not leave him alone to seek out the neighbors and Tofu-san seemed not
| to be answering his phone, but if they were capable of calling out then
| surely it couldn't be _that_ bad. Could it?
Well, Ancient Evil doesn't exactly know what telephone lines are for, ne?
| Hurrying to the front room, she assessed the condition of Akane-chan
| and that nice young Ranma-san and rapidly revised her opinion: it wasn't
| that bad; it was worse. Only one comment seemed appropriate. "Oh, my!"
Hmm. Comma instead of semicolon, methinks. And this particular "ara" likely edges toward the "Damn!" end of the translation spectrum.
| Ranma looked up at Kasumi's entrance, steering Akane gently toward
| the furo. "We're both mostly alright, Kasumi-san, but we badly need a
| bath. Is the Furo hot?"
|
| Kasumi nodded helplessly; they didn't _seem_ alright. Akane was a
| complete mess: dirty, scratched, her new clothes in complete ruination,
| and was that dark substance half covering her arms, legs and back
| _blood_? Ranma hardly looked better, mainly a matter of fewer areas
| messed up, but some of the stains were a loathsome looking green that
| made her head hurt just to _consider_ trying to get out.
Just got a flash of Kasumi doing a Cheer commercial... Ranma fighting some slime monster in the background and then tossing his shirt to her, Kasumi tossing it in the washing machine with a scoop of Cheer, pulling it out and comparing it to a brand-new bright red Chinese-style shirt...
No! Adfics BANNED! Must... not... write....
| Nonetheless she
| nodded affirmatively
How else does one nod?
| to Ranma's question, then, as Ranma moved Akane
| along toward the bath, burst out, "Ranma-san, what happened?!"
Kasumi, as a general rule, doesn't burst. Blurt, maybe. Meekly interject, all the time. But BURST? Then again, this is as close to Not S.O.P. as humanly possible.
| Ranma turned around briefly and saw Soun hovering at the entrance to
| the living room, then sent Akane on toward the bath and answered. "A
| monster attacked the school, Kasumi-san. We killed it, but there were
| a number of casualties. The authorities seem to have the matter in
| hand, so I felt that Akane needed to get home immediately, and take a
| bath , and probably a nap. With your permission?"
|
| Kasumi nodded and turned back to Father, who had burst out in fresh
| tears.
Soun must drink like a fish to be able to keep doing that...
| "Now, now, Father, you heard Ranma-san; both the girls are all
| right and...", and herded him back into his room to have a lie-down.
| And thought, 'A monster. Oh, my!'
Just so long as it doesn't trash the house, Kasumi can deal.
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Ranma ignored the clothes heaped untidily on the floor, and quickly
| stripped. Picking up the water pail and soap, she spent several minutes
| firmly scrubbing out the ichor and gore that encrusted several areas
| of her arms and legs, then filled up the pail again and soaped the rest
| of her body before dumping the pail of water over her head to rinse off.
I'm having this weird Halloween-tainted spin-off leap into my head whereby Jei's blood and such spawns a few copies of him after it's washed down the drain...
| Then she walked over to Akane, who was sitting on a stool, staring at
| her blood-stained hands and feebly attempting to scrub the stains off.
"Out, out, damned spot!"
| Ranma took the soap and washcloth from Akane's unresisting hands and
| used them to quickly rid her of her unwanted decorations, then rinsed
| her off and put her into the tub to soak, joining her soon thereafter.
This is going to be one of those scenes that haunt Ranma when he finds out he's engaged to Akane...
| Ranma settled back into the steaming water and felt her muscles relax,
| but she noted that Akane was not relaxing, and was, in fact, on the
| verge of tears.
And the day's events finally catch up to one of Our Heroines...
| She let Akane have a minute of silence, then gently
| asked "Want to talk about it?"
|
| Akane sniffed and shook her head, "N-no, Ranchan, I'll be alright,
| just ... could you sing for me, something ..."
|
| Ranma suddenly found her vision obscured, a gust of steam had no
| doubt chosen to make a wrong turn.
Steam? I know martial artists are inured to pain and like that, but steam is boiling water. Scalding, even. I burned my finger sticking it in a plume of steam, and it hurt for days afterwards. Call it vapor instead.
And said vapor chose to coalesce right in her eyes, hmm?
| "Sure, _Acchan_, I'll sing something.
| You just relax, now. Maybe try to go to sleep."
|
| That pair in the corner,
| They're here every Tuesday
| They come when the market
| first open its stalls.
| And it's got so that lately
| I'll wait just to see them
| Their heads bent together,
| As they come down the hall.
You know, I'm sort of picturing a flashback-like effect, maybe a misty cinema starting to play out in the droplets suspended above the furo, dissolving into an actual depiction of the narration. But that's not possible in real life, so I'm saving it for the "music video" corner of my brain.
| And Akane felt herself, very slowly, begin to relax. Felt the pains
| of the day roll away. Felt the horror, and the fear, and, what she felt
| was worst of all -- the strange, singing joy -- begin to fade.
When one finds that one truly comes alive in battle, it is not unlikely that one may suppose battle to be necessary to truly live.
That's an ancient Chinese proverb I just made up.
| Felt the
| aches and bruises and the tiredness which denied even sleep or rest
| begin to heal.
|
| And her hair has grown whiter
| His has grown thinner,
| And their pace has slowed down
| As the years have grown long.
| But they keep step together
| 'Mongst strangers who hurry,
| These two old companions,
| Walking slowly along.
|
| Washed away, so to speak, by steaming water. Soothed by safety and
| kindness, and a place to relax. Eased by an easing of stress and fear.
Abruptly frightened as there was a small plop as a ring worked its way loose from Ranma's hair and the singing abruptly dropped an octave or so.
Yes, I know you're not going to let that happen, but the idea won't go away.
| They always take the same table
| And they open their menus,
| And I watch as his hand
| reaches out to touch hers,
| And she, with the other,
| reaches under her chair,
| And fumbles her glasses
| from out of her purse.
|
| Healed and lulled to sleep by a glorious, contralto voice. A voice
| that washed over her and swept through her. A voice that eased her
| sorrows without trivializing them. A voice that understood terror and
| the bloodlust she had found herself fighting, but that had triumphed
| over them.
A voice trembling with barely contained tears. Heck, that's how I feel and I'm just READING the thing.
| And she reads him the specials,
| He does the ordering,
| They joke with the waitress,
| about watching their weight,
| But the waitress says nothing,
| she just snaps her gum
| And then brings their dessert,
| That they'll share from one plate.
|
| She sat back, finally, and relaxed her muscles one by one. Met her
| fear and disgust head on, and found them to be less terrible than she
| had earlier imagined; and, slowly, began to master them.
|
| Sometimes I watch them too closely,
| They notice me staring
| And they smile at me vaguely,
| Not really seeing my face.
| But they know I'm a stranger,
| Not one of their friends
| Who have died, or long since
| Moved away from this place.
|
| And settled back into a drifting haze, and let a golden voice sink
| into her. And gave up her control over her emotions at last, and gently
| began to weep.
|
| They keep to themselves,
| They're each other's shelter,
| Two hearts grown together,
| Two parts of a whole.
| And I smile at them shyly,
| I know I intrude, on this
| pair of old lovers,
| And I turn and I go.
|
| And, as she drifted further from consciousness and the cares of the
| day, seemed to see before her a vision.
Ah, so my initial impression was not so wrong after all.
| But, you know that I've seen them
| As they leave the cafe,
| He pulls out her chair,
| And he helps her to stand,
| And he holds out her coat,
| And he hugs it around her
| And together they leave,
| Holding each other's hand.
|
| A vision of herself, older, gray haired. Resting in another furo.
| And placing a hand, scarred but still strong, lovingly on the back of
| the head resting on her shoulder. A head in whose hair, also mostly
| gray, could still be seen the occasional strand of flaming, sunset red.
I may weep openly. Forget that, I AM weeping openly. Dang. Haven't had this happen since episode six of Aikan Muyo.
| And there's a love beyond words
| In their every small gesture,
| As the two old companions
| make their way through the town
| There's a love beyond name,
| beyond years,
| beyond measure.
| And the days that they share
| Are the stars in their crown.
|
| And gently slipped into slumber, and dreamed of something unseen.
| Something which she loved with all her heart, and which brought her
| great joy. But what it was, when she woke up, she was unable to recall.
Dude. That was one heck of a scene. It pushed all the right buttons. It just... just...
Folks, take a good look. This is about as close to a definitive example of how it's done as you're likely to get. Good stuff. Good stuff.
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Akane awoke slowly, to a background of humming and soft, mumbled
| curses. She was lying in her bed and clothed in her nightgown, but it
| seemed to be daylight. For a moment she could not remember why she
| might be asleep so late in the day, but then memory returned and she
| realized that it must be later in the same day; by the angle of the
| light coming in the window she could see it was sometime just after
| noon.
|
| Akane sat up and perched on the edge of her futon, blinking around
| her with still sleepy eyes. There were, she noticed, two things about
| the room that were different from the way she had left it this morning.
| The first was the tray-table by the side of her futon, loaded with
| a tray carrying lunch.
So it's a tray, mounted on collapsible legs to serve as a table, which has another tray placed on top of it? A tray-table usually doesn't require the use of a tray. But that might just be me.
| The second was Ranma, sitting at her desk,
| wearing one of her old overalls and a shirt slightly too small for her
| -- and, she noticed, no bra -- and bent over a homework assignment in
| math, which she appeared to be making heavy weather of.
Exactly how high up is this futon that Akane can make out the nature of the homework from where she's sitting? Or is it just that Ranma's using pencil to do the problems, or has the textbook partially open so Akane can see the cover, or something of the sort? One must be careful not to let slip the omniscience when one writes in the limited third-person voice.
| Akane absently ate her lunch while she tried to make some sense of
| the events of the day. She finished just as Ranma hissed in frustration,
| crumpled the scratch sheet of paper she was working with, and threw it
| across the room. "Stupid thing," she pouted, "I don't think it even
| _has_ a solution!"
I really hate when you work your way through two pages of integral only to find out that it reduces to an impossibility. Or something silly, like '1'. But then, *eraser clap* such is math.
| Turning around she grinned at Akane, "Awake at last!
| Did you enjoy your lunch ... Acchan?"
|
| Akane blinkied,
I think "blinkblinked" is the appropriate fanfiction term for this particular action. As it is, she sounds like something out of Teletubbies.
| 'Acchan? What ... ohmigods ... the furo! What'll she
| think of me?"
Pick a quote style and stick with it.
| Her hands flew to her face in dismay as she blushed a
| firey red.
|
| Ranma's grin moderated itself into a gentle smile. "No, Akane, I'm
| not mad. In fact, the only other person who has ever called me that was
| the very first friend I ever made. I am more honored than I can say that
| you have chosen to be the second."
Hmm. Even if Ranma remembers Ucchan as a guy, don't you think she... erm, she being Ranma and... GAH! I HATE what this stupid series mandates in the way of third-person pronouns! Anyway, don't you think Ranma would at least have looked up his old best buddy, or has Ranma simply decided to move on?
| This did not particularly seem to help Akane's blush, and she looked
| down at her folded hands bashfully. "Ar-are you sure, Ranma?" She looked
| up at redhead where she sat at the desk. "I've never, that is ...."
|
| Ranma rose lithely to her feet, and crossed the room to where Akane
| sat, hugging her fiercely. "I'm sure, Acchan. As long as you promise
| to stay my friend."
I think that hits a nerve, somewhere along the line.
| Akane told the sudden tears to go away and hugged her friend back,
| trying to place the sudden thumping in her chest. "I promise, Ranchan.
| As long as you promise too."
|
| Ranma stepped back and extended a pinky, her grin almost splitting
| her face. "I promise."
I forget... does the extended pinky in Japan signify a female lover, girlfriend, or just a female friend? I know it's one of those. Never assume that the pinky-swear has universal implications.
| Akane hooked her pinky through Ranma's and gripped, feeling a grin
| taking over her face as well. "I promise too."
|
| Ranma held the pinky grip a moment, and then stepped back, crossing
| her arms over her chest. "Which does _not_, however, get you off of
| getting beaten on during training."
Closing that loophole before it even opens.
| Akane's grin turned crooked, "Wouldn't want it to." Then, jerking
| her head at the desk, "What got you so happy over there?"
|
| "Oh, you would remind me. Feh." Ranma blew her cheeks out and sighed.
| She walked back to the desk and sat down, Akane following behind her,
| and picked up her pencil. "It's a 'Problem of Multiple Variables in
| Multiple Equations' if you please. Bah!"
Oh, math. Tread lightly, my friend, as I am deep embroiled in the throes of Third-Year Calculus and have seen many stray from the plausible in an attempt to put mathematics in their fictions...
| Akane leaned over Ranma's shoulder and looked at the problem. "This
| one doesn't seem _that_ hard, Ranchan."
|
| "Hah! So you say, but look at this! These things don't even have the
| same terms in them!"
Pardon me while I try and refrain from bursting out laughing. Using Lagrange transformations to solve an equation of four variables under two external restrictions, THAT gives you six equations, with only three or four terms in each.
...I'm rambling again, aren't I?
Remind me never to offer C&C after tests...
| Akane chuckled and took the pencil from Ranma's hand. "You're trying
| too hard, Ranchan. See, you take this equation here -- it reduces to
| _this_ variable, see? So you replace the instances of that variable in
| _this_ equation and then you ..."
|
| Fainter now, lower in tone "Oh, that's how... Neat, Acchan! But now
| how...."
|
| Fainter yet, "You just...."
Set up an extended m by n+1 matrix, with m being the number of equations, n the number of unknowns, and the entries being the coefficients and constants involved. Reduce the matrix to a series of identities and...
*blink*
I need to get out more.
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Nabiki had come home soon after noon, and had eaten a sandwich
| before even seeking the furo. Now, around two in the afternoon, she
| had just come from a _long_ soak in the hot water, new clothes, and
| another large meal, and was beginning to feel human again. She pushed
| back her plate and turned to Kasumi, questioning, "Oneechan, where is
| everybody else?"
|
| "Father is sleeping in his room, Nabiki-chan, he took the news very
| hard. Ranma-san and Akane-chan are training, I believe." She turned
| around and caught Nabiki's eyes, "I didn't get many details, imoutochan,
| how was it, really?"
Take Hell. Eternal torment with no possible hope of escape. After what Nabiki saw, it'd make a lovely vacation spot.
| Nabiki shuddered violently, "If it hadn't been for Ranma-san we'd
| have all been killed oneechan. And if Akane-chan hadn't _attacked_ the
| thing I don't know if even Ranma-san could have killed it. It just
| wouldn't _die_, not even when she cut it's head off!" She shuddered
| again.
|
| Kasumi knelt by her and gathered her into a hug, "Akane-chan fighting
| monsters. Who would have thought?"
"Though that strange cat which stopped by the dojo two weeks ago was talking about the same thing..."
| Nabiki pushed herself back from the hug, "You said they were training,
| oneechan? Do you know where they are? I need to talk to Ranma-san."
|
| Kasumi frowned slightly, "Be careful Nabiki-chan."
|
| Nabiki shook her head, "I will be, oneechan. I owe her my life, and
| so does Akane-chan. But we need to know more about her. I think she
| _knew_ or recognized that thing today. What if there's more of them?"
|
| Kasumi nodded seriously, "I think they're in the Dojo."
Umm... the way this is worded, it sounds like Kasumi's saying there are more of those things Ranma fought today in the Dojo. That's taking her unflappability to unnatural extremes.
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Ranma flowed out of the way of Akane's kick and thumped her on the
| head, then called a halt. "Break, Acchan, I've got what I needed, and
| you're getting sloppy."
|
| She put her back to the dojo wall and placed one foot against it,
| crossed her arms, and looked at Akane consideringly, waiting for her to
| regain her breath. "And besides, I think your sister wants something."
Ah yes, standard "I rule" power number 374, detection of people who think they're hiding.
| Nabiki moved out from the entrance where she had been lurking just
| out of view. "Looking good, Akane-chan, what were you doing just then?"
|
| Ranma answered, "Just general assessment work Nabiki-san. I wanted
| to make sure that I got where Acchan was _now_ right, so I could figure
| where she needs to go. It's the first time I've really had a student,
| and I want to be sure I get it right."
Just remember what your father did, and then do the exact opposite. It makes a nice jumping-off point, at least.
| Nabiki raised an eyebrow, and Akane stopped panting long enough to
| wheeze out, "You talk to Nabiki-oneechan, Ranchan, I'm gonna lie down
| and pant for a while." She walked to the wall and sat down beside it,
| then flopped down on her back and lay panting.
Wow. Akane the Prophetess.
| Nabiki raised the other eyebrow, 'Acchan? Ranchan? Geeze, what went
| _on_ in that furo, anyway?',
It pales in comparison to what COULD have gone on in that furo.
| but allowed no other sign to cross her
| face; instead she sweetly inquired, "Should we get out of your way and
| let you take a nap, Akane-chan?"
|
| Akane turned half over and red-eyed her, "Biiiii-da!"
|
| Ranma smirked, "Was there something you wanted, Nabiki-san, or is
| this just one of those sibling rivalry things?"
|
| Nabiki turned back to her, and serious, at the same time.
Erm. I get what you're gunning for here, but it doesn't seem to work. "Nabiki turned back to her, her expression shifting from playful to serious." Something like that.
| "Yes,
| Ranma-san, there was. It's about that monster this morning. You acted
| as though you knew him."
|
| "That would be because I did know him, Nabiki-san." She pushed her
| tongue into her cheek for a moment, "Mind you, the last time I saw him
| there was nothing left but bones, which had just been buried under the
| ruins of a stone tower, underneath which were several tons of gunpowder.
| Which went off immediately thereafter. So I didn't really suspect that
| I'd ever see him _again_, but..."
TIMEX. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
| She examined Nabiki's face consideringly for a moment, "But I suspect
| that what you _actually_ want is the story, ne?"
|
| Nabiki buffed her nails for a moment, "Why, yes Ranma-san, I believe
| it is. Unless," she added calmly, "you would prefer not to tell it?"
|
| "No, no, it's not secret. It is kind of long though. It might be a
| good idea to have Kasumi-san make some snacks and tea. Since I suspect
| that she might wish to hear it too."
|
| "For some odd reason," Nabiki refrained from smirking, "she has, in
| fact, just finished making some."
|
| Ranma arched an eyebrow of her own. "Preplanning. The sure sign of a
| conspiracy. Come, Acchan, we are summoned to Tea."
I love this whole faux-grandiose attitude you have going right now. And the only thing it reminds me of is Cyrano de Bergerac. Or perhaps Sparhawk.
| Akane groaned, "What do you mean, 'We', barbarian?"
|
| "I mean _we_, shirker. As in _you_ and _I_. Because _I_ am summoned
| by your sister, and _you_ are summoned by me."
|
| Akane groaned again, and rolled over, coming to her knees. "Ohhhh.
| My sensei's a bully."
|
| "All senseis are bullies, Acchan." Ranma bopped her on the head,
| "It's the notable trait of the type." And Kasumi came through the door
| with a tray.
I don't know exactly WHY I feel as though everyone's about to burst in laughter, but I do.
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| The girls were seated in a circle around the tray, sitting in the
| middle of the dojo floor. Ranma blew softly on a teacup to cool it, and
| crooked a grin through the steam at the others. "So. The story. I should
| start at the beginning, I guess. And the beginning ..." Her eyes were
| focused on something far away, or perhaps long ago, then refocused on
| the girls. "The beginning starts with my Dad. Oyaji. And the things you
| need to know about Oyaji number three. First, he's a Martial Artist.
| Second, he is of Low Moral Character. And third, he's an Idiot."
"Fourth, he's a Glutt... the things you need to know about Oyaji number four."
No one expects the Neriman inquistion!
| Nabiki *snrrked* and Akane frowned, glaring at someone non-present.
| Ranma grinned crookedly and continued. "Because he's a Martial Artist,
| he wanted me to be one too. Because he's an Idiot, he just knew that
| this noble goal could not possibly be attempted around my mother, so
| he took the opportunity, when I was 5, to take me away on a long train-
| ing trip, and never bring me back. And because he's of Low Moral
| Character we spent the next 6 and a half years running from place to
| place.
Spell out 'six' here. And 'five' as well.
| Generally, I realize now, to escape some debt or other, or get
| away from the results of some theft or scam.
Such as a pretty young okonomiyaki chef you were engaged to, no doubt.
| Now, when I was 11 or so,
| Oyaji found, or bought, or stole, or _something_ this book. These books,
| actually -- there were two of them. The first was a Chinese ... guide
| to training grounds, I guess. It had only been translated a little and
| most of the text was still in Chinese, which Oyaji didn't know how to
| read, but he still got all excited about 'the marvelous possibilities
| to seek out strengthening struggle in the service of our Art'." Ranma's
| voice went very pompous for a moment, than returned to normal.
|
| "Feh. Anyway, the _other_ book was a manual of 'Rare and Forbidden
| Training Techniques', one of which was for the 'Neko-ken', a supposed
| method for training a subject in an Invincible Martial Arts Technique."
The Neko-nomicon, considering what else has been attributed to it.
| Ranma's mouth twisted momentarily, and she sighed. "What you do, the
| book said, is you take the trainee, and the younger the better, and you
| cover him or her with fish sausage. Then you find yourself a pit, and
| put a bunch of starving ca-ca- .... cats into it. And then you take the
| trainee, and you throw them in." Ranma's face was still and far away,
| Akane's and Kasumi's were nearly identical masks of horror, and Nabiki's
| was as set and still as stone. Ranma's eyes refocussed suddenly, and
| she continued, "Then, on the next page of the book, it says that the
| _reason_ this technique is 'Rare and Forbidden' is that, One: it doesn't
| work, and Two: only a complete idiot would even try it in the first
| place.
You have to wonder about some of the people who edit these books. Then again, Genma probably ignored the brilliant red letters on the front cover which were the Chinese equivalent of a Surgeon General's Warning.
| The trouble was, Oyaji _is_ an Idiot, and he didn't _read_ that
| far." Ranma's mouth twisted again, and she sighed.
|
| Nabiki's face was terrible in its stillness, but her voice was
| gentle, "So what _does_ the training do Ranma-san?"
|
| Ranma's voice was equally gentle. "It makes you afraid of cats,
| Nabiki-san."
|
| Kasumi buried her face in her hands, and Akane's face began to
| twist in anger, as Nabiki's control broke at last. "No! I never _would_
| have guessed that!" she snarled, "So what did the _genius_ do then?"
|
| Ranma smiled sadly, and quirked an eyebrow. "Why he devoted the full
| force of his Martial Intellect to the problem, of course. And quickly
| determined the source of the error. It was quite clear: the author of
| the book had _hidden_ the critical detail! Oh, yes! It simply had to be
| a question of the _bait_ you used, you see. And he set out to resolve
| the detail in the finest scientific fashion. Oh, yes! He repeated the
| experiment, only using fish cakes, instead. And then he tried dried
| bream. And then he tried salmon. And then he tried varied sushi. And
| then he tried octopus and squid. And then he tried octopus _by itself_.
| And then...."
Crazy? I was crazy once. They put me in jail. I died there. Then the worms came. Worms? I HATE worms! They make me crazy! Crazy? I was crazy once...
Somehow, I see Ranma's tone above as only slightly less psychotic than what I've outlined...
| Akane broke, and hurled herself into Ranma's shoulder,
| wailing. Kasumi turned her head, sobbing muffledly into her hands.
| Ranma gently massaged the back of Akane's neck and *hssh*d.
I don't get it. Then again, I've never been big on emotions, but why are they crying when it's obvious Ranma's just fine? Rather like some higher proofs in quantum theory, the fact that the story can be told at all is an indication that its bearer is at least serviceably sane.
| "Finally,
| it developed that, if you pursue your course with unrelenting intensity,
| you will, in fact, teach the trainee an Invincible Technique. The fact
| that the training will have driven her psychotic by that point is
| surely a minor detail by comparison, ne?"
I think they raise this issue in "Fist of the North Star". Among others.
| "So, what happened then?" Nabiki asked, soothing Kasumi.
|
| "Well, I managed to avoid killing him about 3 times in the next
| week ..."
|
| "Damn!" Nabiki interjected.
"Well, the one time I didn't avoid killing him more than made up for it."
| "... but I knew that I couldn't do it forever. The problem, you see,
| is that the Invincible Technique works by turning part of your soul
| into the soul of a cat. And it's the cat that controls the technique.
| A cat that doesn't have a bunch of stuff it wants to have -- like fur,
| and a tail -- and does have a bunch of stuff it doesn't want to have --
| like hands, and upright posture -- and which is trying to contend with
| being half-human as well, and which is, therefore, Righteously Pissed
| Off."
About as good a description for the fury of the Nekoken as ever I've seen.
| "So what did *snnf*, what did you do, Ranchan?"
|
| Ranma shrugged, "I beat him up, and told him that I was leaving.
| He'd had 6 and a half years to train me and see what I'd gotten from it.
| Then he wailed and whined and I said I'd come back in 6 and a half
| years and see which of us had done a better job. If I could beat him,
| he'd acknowledge me as the head of the school, and go back to work to
| help support it until I got it back on its feet. If I lost I'd go back
| to training under him at whatever he wanted. He said he'd meet me at
| this training ground in China he'd just found in the other book he'd
| got: a place in Qing-hai province up against the Byankala range. Said
| it was named Jhusenkyou. I promised I'd be there in 6 and a half years
| and beat feet. That was 5 years and 11 months ago."
Hmm. You may want to re-write the prior chapters to avoid retconning... if you haven't done so already.
| Ranma poured herself another cup of tea and blew on it, gazing at
| the sisters through the steam until a measure of calm was restored.
| Then she continued, "When I left Oyaji I went hunting something that
| could help me with controlling the cat. I finally wound up at a Zen
| monastery in northern Hokkaido, where I spent the next 6 months. When
| I left the monastery, I had managed to stuff the cat down under deep
| control and the Neko-ken with it; although I was still afraid of cats,
| I didn't go berserk about it unless I couldn't get away.
Isn't that more or less how the Nekoken works in the original series? I suppose Ranma's less impressionable mind had something to do with it.
| Then I headed
| into China, and made my way north, to Jhusenkyou. The idea I had, you
| see, was that -- if this place was the wonderful training ground Oyaji
| was so fired up about -- then I could study there, and if it wasn't I'd
| still have gotten an idea about the lay of the land, maybe enough to
| give me an edge in case Oyaji actually managed to put up a fight. There
| isn't much to say about the trip ... well, actually that's not true.
| There's a lot to say about the trip, but that's not the story I'm
| telling, so I won't digress into it."
Getting there was half the fun, hmm?
| Ranma paused for a moment, and sipped her tea. "The only item of
| real interest to _this_ story was when, one day, I was walking along a
| road in Qing-hai itself, trying to find out where the bloody training
| ground actually _was_. I came round the corner of a hill, and nearly
| walked into this girl. She had purple hair, was wielding these silly-
| looking mace thingies, and was trying to stare down a tiger.
Ah, so this version of Ranma HAS met Shampoo. And I think the whole color scheme of the bonbori just goes along with the beautiful-but-deadly image the Amazons seem interested in projecting.
| Now, it's
| an interesting thing to say, but the 'training' Oyaji put me through
| did seem to have _one_ good effect; I'm afraid of cats, yes, but only
| _house_cats. Other kinds, like tigers, don't effect me at all.
This is different. Sort of. Then again, it can probably be argued that the tiger in the original series didn't trip Ranma into the Nekoken so much as it unbalanced an already fragile mental state. A brief loss of control and boom. Or meow, rather.
| Plus
| which, the phobia about cats seems to have sucked up all the fear I
| have in me.
Hmm... well, I suppose original-series Ranma's nervousness around girls is more or less consigned to the ether, now that Ranma's mental image includes himself as a girl.
| On the one hand, that means that when the nekophobia hits
| it hits _hard_; but on the other hand, I don't have much left for any-
| thing _else_, so when I get into situations like that I don't panic.
| Which was a good thing, at the time. Anyway, I remembered about some
| animals making themselves look bigger and louder to frighten off an
| attacker, and figured that I didn't have much to lose.
"Hey, odds were two to one I'd be the one it decided would make a nice midafternoon snack."
| So I jumped up
| _way_ high and _yelled_ at the top of my lungs. And it must have worked,
| 'cause the tiger turned and ran off like his tail was on fire." Ranma
| gave another grin, and continued. "Anyway, that was how I met Shan Pu."
Okay, so if the girl is wondering where a husband for her is going to come from, why doesn't she remember the boy who ran off a tiger unarmed? Or is Ranma selectively telling the story and had, in reality, taken the trip to Jusenkyo before meeting up with the Amazons?
| "Shan turned out to be the champion-apparent of the village of the
| Josoketsuku -- who are a fairly fierce group of warriors that live
| thereabouts -- and by the time we got back to her village, she was the
| second friend I'd ever made. So I spent some time in the village, and
| learned a few tricks, and it turned out that they _did_ know where
| Jhusenkyou was, only they didn't want to tell _me_. It seemed, they said,
| that the whole valley of Jhusenkyou was cursed, and anyone who went there
| would probably get cursed too. Well, I reckoned that I was too smart to
| fall for an obvious dodge like _that_, and one night I snuck out of the
| village and traveled to the valley where Jhusenkyou was." Ranma's eyes
| were far away again, and she sighed. "I've always wished I'd listened
| to Cologne-obaasama; I might have spared myself a lot of grief.
And likely been her grandson-in-law.
| She'd
| been right, you see, the valley of Jhusenkyou _is_ cursed, and if you
| go there you probably _will_ end up cursed too. I don't know what all
| the curses of Jhusenkyou do, but the one thing that they _all_ do is
| the one thing that really makes them curses: after you go there, you
| live in interesting times."
For no other reason than that gender and species confusion will mess up your life something terrible.
| Ranma paused a moment and sipped more tea. "And I don't mean 'nice'
| interesting either. _Not_nice interesting is the order of the day, here.
| If you stumble, you fall down a hill. And there's a dung-heap at the
| bottom, too. And you don't even get to break your fall, oh no, there's
| a rock waiting under it, you can bet. If anything falls out of the sky,
| it lands on your head; if you go through a bush, you find the thorns,
| and if it doesn't _have_ thorns there'll be a bramble growing there,
| instead; if somebody shoots an arrow at you and ten other people,
| _you're_ the one standing in the way.
Or it could just be that Ranma's simply remembering the mishaps because they were remarkable and not the non-mishaps because they were unremarkable, and attributing all the mishaps to the curse. It's been known to happen.
| Well, I already knew that the
| Josoketsuku didn't have any way to cure the curses, and I was too
| embarrassed to go back after I ignored their warnings anyway, so I
| wandered back south instead. I never did find a cure for the curse in
| China, but I did finally end up in a place that led to my eventually
| finding one elsewhere, and also to my meeting that noble gentleman we
| entertained earlier today, and to a bunch of other stuff as well. The
| reason is this," she opened her shirt slightly, and took an amulet of
| silver from around her neck, laying it in the center of the circle,
| "and how and why I got it is a story in itself."
Hmm. You know, she could just portray the curse as turning into a man when she's hit with hot water, say she found something to seal it, and work from there. Unless someone goes and does research on Jusenkyo, if there is any sort of reference material on it, the story's completely airtight and not entirely untrue. Erm... come to think of it, if anyone from the pre-Jusenkyo past shows up, the cover's blown. Forget I mentioned it.
| Nabiki picked up the amulet and examined it, showing it to Akane and
| Kasumi. It was made of fretted silver, chased with interlocking dragons
| and spirits around the outside. Mounted so as to entirely take up
| one face of the amulet was a small, cracked mirror. Mounted on the
| other side was a triangular piece of pottery, perhaps two inches on a
| side, covered with patterns that looked like stretched cords, or ropes.
| Nabiki turned it over and about in her hands as Ranma went on.
This is something else that just begs to have fanart made of it. Any takers? Please?
| "The place I ended up was Hong Kong, and in order to understand the
| story I'm about to tell you have to know the one cardinal thing about
| my character at the time: I was a barbarian."
|
| Nabiki raised an eyebrow and smirked, "_At the time_, Ranma-san?"
|
| "Of course, Nabiki-san. Now, I'm only _uncivilized_."
|
| "Ah. I see. Do go on."
The difference being, of course, that the barbarian is unknowingly ignorant of the mores of civilization, and Ranma is willfully ignorant of them, hmm?
| Ranma smirked, herself, and did so. "I hadn't been around people
| much at all, 'cause Oyaji'd moved around so much, and I was what you
| might call 'sheltered' about a lot of things as a result. So, when,
| just after I got to the city, I saw this girl who was wearing about
| half of nothing -- and that mostly torn -- all _I_ thought was, 'isn't
| that _cold_?'"
Well, that and you hadn't yet hit puberty. Or had you?
| Nabiki sniggered and both Akane and Kasumi blushed.
| Ranma's grin turned crooked as she continued. "And when this guy came
| out of an alley and pushed her up against a wall, all I thought was
| that he shouldn't use that knife to make a girl cry like that. So I
| took the knife away from him and broke his arms a couple times
In a couple places, probably, unless he had a regeneration factor through the roof.
| and ran
| him off. Then I went to see if the girl was alright. Her name turned
| out to be Masuda Kee, and she was half japanese, a geisha, and, as far
| as I could see, badly in need of someone to tell her to come in out of
| the rain. Now, at the time, I didn't know the difference between a
| geisha and a fish-seller, but I did know something about surviving on
| the road, and on the streets as well. As it turned out later, Kee-
| 'moutochan did not, being of that temperament that fails to concentrate
| on business because it gets too caught up in its work."
I think the word you might be looking for is 'gaishou', not geisha. But I could be wrong.
| Nabiki was keeping her face straight with an effort, and Akane and
| Kasumi were reddening alarmingly, but Ranma merely grinned more
| crookedly yet. "She had offended several of the local street trash by
| being insufficiently grateful for their 'protection' and had attracted
| far too much attention -- and customers -- for safety. So I appointed
| myself as her 'older' sibling, and began trying to figure out where to
| go to hook up with someone who could keep track of business for her,
| and put a roof over her head. In the process I managed to offend someone
| myself. This led to my inadvertently eating a plate of mushrooms that
| had been drenched in LSD and laced with about 20 grams of pure opium.
| Fortunately I didn't eat the whole thing, but it was enough to addict
| me and trip me too, and I went down hard.
Particularly considering your system wasn't at full strength yet. Gah. Gives a whole new meaning to magic mushrooms. And wouldn't the trip (the immediate cause) be mentioned before the addiction (long-term cause), as in, "but it was, unfortunately, enough to trip me and, more unfortunately, enough to get me addicted".
| Kee-chan put me to bed and
| kept me off my feet when I was raving, long enough to work through the
| trip. And it turned out to be the solution to her problem, because
| she rented a room from -- and explained her problem too -- someone on
| the shady side who knew someone who knew someone who knew someone, who
| mentioned it to the okaasama of the Dream of the Jade Pagoda of the
| Golden Door of Infinite Bliss."
|
| Nabiki choked briefly, "The Dream of Jade? That's the best pleasure
| house in Hong Kong!"
|
| Ranma raised an eyebrow, "Why, yes it is Nabiki-san. And we're all
| wondering how it is you came to know that."
"Uhm... lucky guess?"
Great moment, this one.
| Nabiki blushed, but held her chin up. "I keep my ear to the ground",
| she said, attempting to retain what was left of her dignity.
|
| "Of course you do," Ranma said, straight-facedly, "that's perfectly
| sound business practice."
|
| Nabiki disdained to reply, and Ranma grinned and continued. "Liang-
| okaasama decided that Lee-chan should go to work for her, since the best
| -- or at least most enthusiastic -- geisha in Hong Kong should work
| for the best pleasure house anyway. So that fixed Lee-imoutochan's
| problem, and provided me, after I recovered, with an opportunity to
| expand my education a bit."
This was probably when Ranma went through puberty in both forms, hmm? Mentally if not physically.
| Ranma's eyes twinkled wickedly and Akane's
| blush expanded visibly. Kasumi, on the other hand, had achieved the
| determinedly unaffected countenance of one who Is Not Hearing This.
"I'm not listening I'm not listening... yappa pa, yappa pa..."
| Nabiki coughed, and squeaked "You mean...?"
|
| Ranma fixed her with a very speaking look, and asked, "What would
| _you_ have done? Besides, can you think of a _better_ time or place?"
|
| Nabiki muttered something about "twelve", but did not seem otherwise
| inclined to reply to this question. Akane was bravely fighting off
| unconsciousness from excessive blood drain to the face, but surprised
| herself with a giggle. Kasumi was still in the land of the selectively
| deaf, and therefore Ranma went on unhindered. "That aside, however, and
| continuing with my story, it was at the Golden Door that I met Oniichan
| Kai. He was a genin for the Black Wave Yakuza," Nabiki started,
Having, no doubt, heard about the in-fighting amongst Yakuza and wondering if one day men with submachine guns will join otherwordly monsters in the cast of weird things to come to Nerima.
| "and he
| used to bring his wife and their daughter to the Golden Door's restaur-
| ant for dinner. He sort of adopted me at the time, and I always looked
| on him as the big brother I'd never had, and I was friends with Oneesan
| Asako too. Imoutochan Kaiko was my little sister along with Kee-chan
| and for a while there I thought that I'd found a family and wouldn't
| need to go anywhere else while I waited to beat up on Oyaji. I'd made
| contact with the local Temple too, and I'd go to train there, or
| Kai-oniichan would use his contacts to get me some lessons with one of
| the wandering masters, or he'd train me himself, or Liang-okaasama
| would use her contacts or...."
|
| Ranma's eyes were fixed in time and space, looking at something far
| away. She sighed and a suspicious glimmer began to gather at the corner
| of her eye. "I suppose I should have known better.
When something is too good to last, it most likely is.
| Liang-okaasama had
| made the Golden Door a neutral ground in the Hong Kong underside and the
| city's major underworld clans were sort of united around it, not so much
| in coalition, as in a mutual understanding that violence and unrest was
| bad for business. The Black Wave was the most powerful Yakuza clan in
| the city, along with the Silver Skull and the Golden Sword, and they
| and the most powerful of the Triads enforced a sort of peace on the
| more ... 'established' parts of the underworld, as it were. Needless
| to say, some of the _less_ established parts were not too happy about
| that, and one day we found out that this guy named Master Po had
| organized a war. He had been a master in one of the older Triads, and
| was some kind of sorcerer too, so he had a fairish amount of support
| just on his own hook; and then he'd organized most of the little gangs
| and rings and such into an army, too. Alongside that, he'd made an
| alliance with the powers of Darkness, and he could command or bargain
| with the undead, so he had about 30 or 40 vampires as shock troops."
Oh dear. I somehow get the feeling that the backstory could be made into an equal-length work in and of itself.
| Ranma put down her teacup and leaned forward, sighing again. "The
| whole thing was very quiet, but it was also extremely ugly and for a
| while there we were hard pressed. But Kai-oniichan organized the
| enforcers of the major organizations into a counter-army, and the temple
| monks and priests made a bunch of peachwood swords and wards and things
| that the vampires couldn't handle, and I got the street-folk organized
| to use them and some basic weaponry and we killed all the vamps that
| didn't run and we drove the upstarts back to the wall. Then we were
| betrayed."
|
| Nabiki spoke up hesitantly, "Ranma-san, I'd heard some rumors about
| a big shake-up in one of the major Hong Kong clans a while back, but
| no one ever had any details. Could that have been...?"
|
| Ranma nodded, pricking tears. "Oyabun Mikoji died very suddenly. It
| might have been natural, he was about 80, but I've always suspected
| that Po got to him somehow. I _know_ he got to others, 'cause Mikoji-
| dono's successor suddenly decided that Master Po had the secret to
| 'Eternal Life' and the Black Wave and the Fire Harmony Triad switched
| sides. Maybe Master Po was a vampire himself, and he turned the leaders,
| I don't know. What I do know is that suddenly the dead started rising
| up around our feet, and vampires started coming out of the walls, and
| half our soldiers were on the other side all of a sudden and knew our
| plans to boot."
And now, Less Than Great Moments in Military History...
| Ranma shivered for a moment, eyes again far off. "The only way out
| that I could see was to take Po out before he could consolidate, and
| hope that the shock dispelled all the zombies and things, or at least
| slowed them down. So I organized what I could get my hands on and we
| went through the front of their defenses. It helped that I'd gotten one
| of the zombies restrained, 'cause I showed the thing off to the Black
| Wave troops on that section and three fourths of them changed sides
| again. Anyway we broke the defense of Po's sanctum and I went in to get
| him, but I discovered that he'd called all his proteges in for a
| conference, and they'd brought their guards with them. So we plowed
| into them, and when it was over the only two left standing were me and
| Kai-oniichan, who'd been commanding the guards."
|
| Akane gasped in sympathy, "Ranchan, why didn't he switch sides too?
| Didn't you tell him ...?"
|
| Ranma looked at her through gathering tears. "Because he was a
| Samurai, Acchan, and wouldn't leave his Lord's side."
|
| Akane nodded, eyes also dimmed by tears, and Ranma continued. "So
| I knew Po and the others were just beyond him, and I knew he wouldn't
| get out of my way, and I knew I couldn't beat him. So I turned loose
| the cat, and the last thing I remember before I woke up in the middle
| of the pile of corpses that had used to be Master Po and his lieutenants
| and the traitors was batting Kai-oniichan out of the way, and he went
| through a wall trailing blood."
*blink* Ranma can go into Neko-ken berserker mode now? This is an interesting development, certainly...
| Akane gathered Ranma to her, and the redhead nestled her face into
| her friend's shoulder for a long minute, silently weeping. When she
| regained control she sat back and wiped her eyes, and continued. "We
| never did recover Oniichan's body, but the place had been pretty badly
| damaged in the fight and the whole thing burned down and exploded right
| after that, so that's not too surprising. Anyway I couldn't stay in the
| city after that, so I made what arrangements I could for Asako-oneesan
| and Kaiko-imoutochan, and got ready to leave. Then the Abbot of the
| temple took me aside and told me that the temple had been guarding
| something for a couple centuries now, but he felt I was worthy and he
| wanted me to have it."
|
| Ranma gestured at the amulet in the center of the circle and kept on.
| "Well, I didn't _feel_ worthy, but the Abbot said that it could help
| me find what I needed so I took it anyway. What it was, was the mirror
| set into that amulet there, and the Abbot said it was the, or maybe _a_,
| Nanban Mirror, and it was a magic mirror of travel.
I'm putting my money on _a_ Nanban mirror. Unless there's some sort of time paradox thing wherein Ranma has to use the amulet to recover the original from Happosai and give it to some craftsman who makes the amulet out of it. But you're mixing manga and fantasy; enough to worry about without throwing sci-fi in as well.
| So I put it in my
| pack, and took some of the money I had, and came back to Tokyo at last.
| I was deeply depressed, still in shock, and had no idea what I was going
| to do with my life, or even if I should bother. I was thirteen years
| old. So, just after I got back, I took a trip to see Fuji-san. I was
| completely bummed out and seeing the happy people all around didn't
| help, and I had this stupid mirror in my pack and it wasn't doing
| anything at all. So I found this little clearing and took it out and
| yelled at it. It didn't do anything, and finally I started crying, and
| that was how I found out how it works."
|
| Akane frowned, "You mean...?"
"When you annoy it enough, it tries to get away and takes you with it. Not the most reliable mode of transport in the world."
| Ranma nodded firmly. "Yep. Tears. Tears or blood. Drop them onto
| the mirror and it'll take you away. _But_. You see that the Mirror is
| cracked? So sometimes it takes you where you ask to go. And _sometimes_
| it takes you where you _want_ to go. And sometimes it takes you where
| you _need_ to go. And sometimes -- if you're unlucky -- it takes you
| where you _deserve_ to go."
"And one time I ended up in a posh restaurant with a man with two heads who said he was President of the Galaxy or something."
| Nabiki asked "Can anyone use it?" as Akane overrode her with, "So
| where did it take you, Ranchan?"
|
| Ranma smirked and answered Nabiki first. "Maybe once, Nabiki-san, but
| not any more. I've spilled too much blood on it, and it'll only work
| for me until I die.
And he knows this how? The monk told him?
| And as to where it took me.... Well. I knew as
| soon as it happened that it had done _something_, but I didn't know
| _what_. So I started looking around, and I noticed that Fuji-san was
| smaller. Now I was standing in the same place and hadn't moved as far
| as I could tell, but still it wasn't the same place at all. So I started
| walking around, and I noticed that I must have been in much the same
| place but some of the landmarks weren't there. And others were changed
| and there wasn't any sign of people around at all. Eventually I found
| an open space in the woods, and followed that to a stream. I followed
| the stream along for a day or so, and finally broke out into a cleared
| field. Now I'd been seeing the right trees and plants for the area all
| around me, and Fuji-san was still there so I knew I must still be in
| Japan, but I also knew it wasn't _my_ Japan. So when I walked around
| the outer edge of the field and came in sight of the village the field
| was a part of and found that it was all in really ancient form houses
| and stuff, and that the people in it were Ainu, I wasn't as surprised
| as I might have been otherwise."
|
| Nabiki started and Kasumi gasped, "Ainu! Near Fuji-san? Kami, how
| far back did you go?"
|
| Ranma smiled crookedly. "From research I did later, Kasumi-san, I
| figure about 2500 to 3000 years."
Quantum Leap, ladies and gentlemen...
I'd include the opening theme, but I've got no idea where to find it.
| Akane shook her head in shock and
| Ranma grinned at her. "So I was walking along the edge of the field,
| not looking at the ground, and I trod on something and it dug into my
| foot. I picked it up, and took it into the village. Now the village
| didn't know what to do with me at all, and it didn't help that I was
| pissed off, but they figured that I must be a spirit or something and
| sent for the shaman. The shaman was a smart old bugger, and we figured
| out how to puzzle out a few concepts. I asked him what the hell they
| thought they were doing to leave things like that out where they could
| bite people, and he said that it wasn't theirs. They just popped up,
| he said. They'd been made by somebody back at the dawn of time, and
| then they'd all gotten broke and scattered about when the world came to
| an end. Or something like that, anyway. So I said that if they gave me
| a place to sleep and some food I wouldn't be mad at them. So they shared
| what they had, which wasn't much, and it was good that they did, 'cause
| that night some bandit types came out of the forest and I had to run
| them off."
|
| Ranma poured herself another cup of tea. "I'd had to kill a couple
| of the bandits, and the next morning I tried to talk to the shaman
| again. It turned out that the village didn't actually have anything
| to take except a little food, but the bandits would take anything they
| could get. Later that night I looked at the pottery piece I'd stepped
| on -- that's it on the back of the amulet -- and I noticed something.
| The piece had been broken off its pot when somebody hit it with an axe.
| If you look you can see the signs at the top. So I used the mirror to
| go back to Tokyo, and went to a museum. The guy I talked to there said
| it was a Jomon pot, and figured that it must be 5000 years old at least.
| And I sat down _that_ night and thought about it some more, and I
| realized that some poor guy had made this pot, and needed it for some-
| thing. And some other bastard had come along and broken it, and prob-
| ably killed the guy that made it too. And it had waited 2000 years in
| the ground so it could come up and bite my foot, so I would stay in
| a little village where little people lived who hardly had enough for
| their families to eat. And then another group of bastards had come out
| of the forest to break all _their_ stuff and kill _them_, but I'd
| stopped them instead. And I'd just come from 3000 years ahead of those
| little people, where I'd been living in a city with another group of
| little people trying to get on with their lives, and yet _another_ set
| of bastards had come out of the wilderness and tried to kill and mess
| up _them_, just so they could steal what _they_ had. And it came to me
| that, if I went wandering around living with groups of little people
| trying to get on with their lives long enough, probably any set of
| them that you cared to name was eventually going to have some set of
| bastards or other come out of the wilderness and try to kill them and
| break all their stuff so they could steal whatever they had. And if I
| was there, then I could stop them from doing it. And that was about as
| good a life plan as anyone like me was ever going to get.
Well, it works for about ninety percent of all superheroes. And Dr. Samuel Beckett. So it couldn't be all bad.
| So I took the
| mirror and had it mounted in the amulet,
It wasn't already? From the way he described it I thought it was...
| and had the guy put the pot-
| shard on the other side, to thank it for the lesson. And then I asked
| the mirror to take me to somewhere I could learn to become a protector,
| and cut my arm and bled on it, and I was off."
|
| Akane's eyes were bright and she leaned forward. "So where did you
| end up that time, Ranchan?"
|
| "Well I ended up on top of a hill, and when I tried to get my
| bearings I tripped and rolled down it and when I reached the bottom of
| the hill I ended up at the feet of this tall, handsome, noble-looking
| guy with a samurai's swords and topknot and the clothing of a wandering
| ronin. Except he was a rabbit. And that was how I met Usagi."
|
| "W-wait just a minute, Ranchan. A rabbit?" Akane blinked in
| confusion.
|
| Ranma nodded. "Usagi's world is basically Japan in 1620 CE or so,
| except most of the people are (what's the word?) ... Anthropomorphics!
| That's it. You know, human-shaped animals, like in a manga. So there's
| Bulls and Bears and Cats and Rabbits and Foxes .... Daimyo Noriyuki
| is a _Panda_ of all things, for instance.
Do the species have to be capitalized? Well, I suppose it could pass for nationality, or at least an ideological equivalent.
| So, to continue, Usagi-dono,
| that's Miyamoto Usagi by the way, had been a samurai in the service of
| the Daimyo Mifune. Mifune was the enemy of Daimyo Hijiki, and about
| five or six years before I'd met them, in the last part of the battles
| for the Shogunate, they'd come to blows. Lord Mifune would probably
| have won, but Hijiki is a plotter, and he plotted well. Two of Mifune's
| allies turned traitor, along with one of his generals and the commander
| of his bodyguard. Usagi was away from his side acting as a courier at
| the time and he got back too late, Gunichi had run off and Lord Mifune
| was mortally injured. A samurai's loyalty doesn't end just because his
| lord is dead, and so Usagi wanders serving his master's cause as best
| he can as a ronin."
|
| Akane sniffed and wiped her eyes and Ranma smiled wistfully. "It's
| all very sweet and touching and honorable, and Usagi-dono is handsome
| and noble and kind, so I was more than willing to follow him around
| and train with him."
|
| Nabiki grinned twistedly, "Get lucky?" Akane bopped her on the head.
*blinkblink* With a rabbit.
| Ranma pouted. "No, darn it! There's such a thing as being _too_
| noble. Although I see now that he was basic ly already taken anyway. And
| I did manage to retain _most_ of my dignity.
This is the made-up part of the story, right? PLEASE tell me it's the made-up part of the story...
| But I learned a lot about
| combat, and honor, and the sword, and traveling with Usagi is good
| for putting polish on young warriors if it's good for nothing else. I
| met a number of his friends and aquaintances, and managed to spend a
| month or two with a few of them as well. After, I left and used the
| mirror to go a few years later in our own Japan for a while and then
| jumped back and forth to here and there training in whatever Art was
| available wherever I went. But I would go back to the wanderer's road
| to check on my friends from time to time."
|
| Nabiki quirked an eyebrow. "Just to check, hmmm?"
|
| Ranma shrugged. "You get better adventures with Usagi and company
| around, and they _are_ my friends.
It's one of those ta'averen things. When you've been marked by Destiny...
| Plus, to be honest, it's enormously
| liberating to be so free that the only thing that you have to worry
| about is if there's an inn in the direction you woke up facing, and
| that only because it's the direction you're walking now. At least until
| the first couple of times you spend a wet, cold, fireless night 'cause
| there _wasn't_ one, anyway. And that takes a while."
|
| Kasumi and Nabiki had acquired far off looks, and Akane looked
| slightly wistful. "So what about Jei-san, Ranchan?"
|
| Ranma shrugged. "Jei's from Usagi's world of course. He used to be
| a samurai or some such. I ran into him several times and didn't enjoy
| any of the experiences, but they weren't like today. As for what he is?
| The first couple of times I met him he seemed completely human, or wolf,
| or whatever. Mad as a monk in a morass, mind you, but human. He's always
| claimed to be the champion of the gods and such, but _which_ god he's
| never said. If he knows. Generally he speaks of a 'sacred mission',
| which always involves mayhem and slaughter of some type, and says that
| when he completes it he will be lifted up and granted divinity.
Well, he's going to be vertically shifted, at least. Perhaps he's being groomed to be the avatar of the Angry Buddha.
| He has
| before been shown to be fast, strong, damn good with a sword, deadly
| with a yari, tough, possessed of some kind of tracking sense if he's
| hunting you, and very hard to permanently kill -- he always seems to
| come back."
"And he likes cheese danish. I'm not exactly sure why."
| Ranma rubbed her chin for a moment and considered. "The first time
| I met him, he just started ranting and attacked me.
This applies to about half of the male characters in the original series.
| Since I was with
| Usagi-dono and Tomoe-san -- Noriyuki-sama's chief retainer -- at the
| time, that was a particularly stupid thing to do. It wasn't really
| much of a fight and we left him by the roadside, dead, as we thought
| at the time. He came back on us and kidnapped the son of the headmaster
| of Usagi's old village to get Usagi to fight him. Usagi did, and sent
| him over a cliff with his yari in his side. The third time that I met
| him was the only time I ever managed to get close to Hijiki in a fight.
| Hijiki's not nearly the fighter that he is a plotter, and I nearly had
| him, but Jei came out of nowhere and saved the bastard. I cut Jei's
| heart in two for it, but I didn't get to see what happened to him
| after that, because Hijiki took advantage of my distraction and did
| this." Ranma indicated her throat, and the scar she bore there.
|
| Ranma tapped her chin with her index finger for a moment. "The last
| time that I saw Jei before this morning ... Was about a year ago in my
| timeline. I had run into the little bugger unexpectedly, on the road,
| and had dueled with him a little. Then he broke off and started moving.
| I thought it was weird and pursued. It worked out that he'd been sent
| or moved by his patron or something, because about twenty miles away or
| so I ran into Usagi. He was with Gennosuke-san and Zato-ino and about
| thirty or so Neko clan Ninja. They were preparing to assault this
| castle, the fortress of a moderately important lord named Tamakuro, and
| Jei had gone for the fortress like he'd been pulled by a string.
| Tamakuro, according to Usagi and the leader of the ninja -- a guy named
| Shingen -- had gathered together a store of about three hundred arque-
| buses and a couple tons of ammunition and was preparing to rebel against
| the Shogun. We found out later that Hijiki was behind it in some way,
| but as usual he didn't leave any evidence you could use. Anyway we
| attacked the place and broke through the wall; Usagi went off hunting
| for Tomoe-san, who was imprisoned there, and Gen and Zato-ino got
| pinned down holding off about half the garrison near the main gate.
| This left it up to Shingen-san and I to lead the ninja against the
| armory; we did alright for a while, but then Jei stuck his nose in. He
| smashed into the side of our assault and killed Shingen-san and a dozen
| or so ninja, which threw the rest into confusion; I went after him and
| chased him up into the fortress proper. Usagi had found Tomoe-san and he
| and she had rallied the ninja and mounted another assault on the armory,
| but Tamakuro had gained enough time to regroup and bring the rest of
| his guards to the central defense and they were driven back. In the
| mean-time I had run into Jei and a samurai I knew to be one of Hijiki's
| chief axes preparing to lead the rest of the guards to trap the rest
| inside the castle. I scattered the guards and got involved in a fight
| with Jei and Akkhoto that damn near killed me, but I maneuvered them
| into one spot in front of the central tower and called the dragon wind
| on them. _That_ time it worked -- it didn't this morning -- and Jei
| went down with the tower falling on top of him. About that time I got a
| very strong impulse to beat feet and did so, which turned out to be a
| good thing, 'cause something had struck a spark or something in the
| ammunition room and the whole damn place blew sky high. Now that was
| the first time that I knew A:) that Jei had not only been mortally
| injured but had actually _died_, and, B:) that the body was destroyed a
| nd not lost track of."
Hmm. Watch the line breaks on the last line, and you can either a) use parentheses or b) use colons to set those letter-slash-bullet points off, but not both.
| Ranma paused for a moment and sipped the last of her tea. "I don't
| really know how he got out of that, but his showing up _here_ just
| confirms what you could get from the fact that he showed up at all;
| which is that he has some _major_ supernatural backing. That, combined
| with the abilities, weaknesses and immunity to damage he showed this
| morning makes me think that he may have been turned into a Chiang Shih.
| That would mean that someone had done something to his higher 'hun'
| soul and then corrupted his 'po' soul ... or replaced it altogether,
| now that I think of it. He was definitely slower and less skilled than
| he should have been, which would fit, 'cause his 'body soul' would be
| messed up and wouldn't have all the same skill and 'feel' he'd be used
| to. He'd also be damn near impossible to permanently damage, which
| definitely fits. Normally you'd also expect him to be vulnerable to
| sunlight, but he obviously wasn't. This is probably due to the power he
| was throwing around - that green fire. It showed all the signs of being
| a serious yin chi manifestation, and from the way it acted I'm betting
| it was the main thing holding his body together."
|
| "Which would mean what?", Nabiki asked softly.
|
| Ranma's eyes were focused on the problem, rather than the girls.
| "Which would mean that he was something closer to a demon than a Chiang
| Shih per se, Nabiki-san. He'd be using the body only as a means to
| move his power around and not really be connected to it at all ...",
| her eyes narrowed and her voice went soft, "not connected ... now that
| I mention it I didn't see any sign of his 'hun' soul at all did I? I cut
| out the 'po' soul and _it_ was in the heart instead of the lungs, but
| I didn't see the 'hun' at all. Which could mean that he was using the
| power to animate the body and the body to contain the power and the
| 'po' soul to control it all ... and that would explain why the body
| blew up like that when I took the soul out ... but the 'hun' soul had
| to be _somewhere_, and if it wasn't _there_ ... then he must have been
| given a way to run the body 'long-distance', as it were ... which
| would mean ...."
Not Jei-san but an incredible simulation!
| "Which would mean that he could come back, wouldn't it, Ranchan?",
| asked Akane very quietly.
|
| Ranma frowned worriedly. "Yeah, it would."
But seriously, what's he got to gain? He gets shot up with a nice pump-action shotgun a couple times, turned into extra tasty crispy by a little napalm, maybe gets tossed through a harvester... modern technology is a wonderful thing, isn't it, kiddies? A couple close encounters with not-so-close range weaponry and he'll either be decked out like Rambo next time around or go back home, tail between his legs.
| Nabiki was also very quiet. "If it does come back, what can we do,
| Ranma-san?"
|
| Ranma's gaze was level. "You can hide, Nabiki-san. And if you can't
| hide, then you can run." She transferred her gaze to Akane, who met it
| levelly. "_You_, I'll work with, since I don't suppose I can convince
| you to be sensible and keep out of it."
|
| "No, Ranchan, you can't. As long as you're fighting it, I will be
| too."
|
| A quiet settled over Akane and Ranma, who were sitting with their
| gazes locked on each other's eyes. Nabiki and Kasumi quietly stood up,
| gathered up the tray and tea things and left the dojo. Eventually
| Ranma leaned forward and ran her thumb in a circle around Akane's
| forehead. "Marked with the sign. Just like me." Standing up, "Come on,
| Acchan, you haven't done anywhere near enough training yet."
|
| Akane moaned theatrically as she rose. "Ohhhh. My sensei's a bully."
|
| "All senseis are bullies, Acchan." Ranma bopped her on the head,
| "It's the notable trait of the type. Assume."
|
| "Oh, Kamis."
|
| "Kumite."
|
| "Help."
|
| *Hsssh*, *shrk*, *th-thmp* *shrk* *hssh*. *rtch-THUMP*. "Ite!"
Hmm. I'm getting the mental picture of a pan back and the dojo action being hidden from view.
| "Slacker."
|
| "Bully."
|
| "Shirker. Assume."
|
| "Baka. Friends?"
|
| "Friends forever, I promise. Kumite." *Hssh*, *rtch-thp*, *th-thmp*
| *shrk*, *thmp-thmp-SPLT*
|
| "Ite!"
|
| "Which does not, however, get you out of getting beat on." *rtch-
| thp*, *shrk-hshh-shrk-rtch*.
|
| "Wouldn't want it any other way." *th-thmp*, *shrk*, *thmp-thmp-THAP*
| *whhsh-rtch-THMP!* "HA!"
|
| "Good one." *THUMP-WHAP-WHAM*
|
| "Ite!"
|
| "Just don't get cocky."
Fade to black. Or something.
'Nother good episode. What more is there to say?
--G. Falconar