Cursed No More
By M. Zephyr
Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 is a trademark of Rumiko Takahashi and VIZ Communications, and its characters have been borrowed without permission. This story was written for non-commercial purposes only.
Kuno uses the wishing sword to free Ranma of his curse.
He steeled himself against the coming terror. He could do this. Just one moment of horror, that's all it would take, and he'd never be a girl again.
All he had to do was let Tatewaki Kuno kiss him.
Ranma Saotome closed his eyes, the eyes of a girl, eyes belonging to his ... this female body he was cursed to wear whenever he was splashed with cold water. For more than nine months this transformation had been a daily reality, and now, fate permitting, his cure was just a few minutes away. He need only survive one kiss.
The current predicament had begun three days ago, when the deranged upperclassman Kuno had, by a twist of fate, pulled the sword known as the Wishbringer from its stone. That it could truly grant wishes had been proven when it fulfilled the first two wishes Kuno had made. That it would grant wishes only to Kuno had been proven when Ranma's fool of a father, Genma, had stolen the sword temporarily and attempted to use the last wish. Of the three original wishes allowed, only one more could be made, and it was up to Kuno to make it.
When Genma had taken the sword and, presumably, the last wish, Ranma had been crushed by despair, certain that his chance to be rid of the curse was lost, stolen by his father. The black weight had been lifted from his heart a moment later, when the sword refused to grant a wish voiced by anyone other than he who had pulled it free. But even in Ranma's relief, the theft was one more bitter act to set against his father's account. Throughout Ranma's sixteen years of life, the man had excelled at finding ways to bring ruin down on his son, or at least the threat of ruin and narrow escape therefrom. More than sixteen years, really, as Genma had begun before his heir was even born. It was almost inconceivable that the elder Saotome was still able to find fresh and new methods of attempting such ruin.
Ranma was recalled to the present by Kuno's grip on his shoulders. He looked up to see the boy's face only centimeters away from his own. Somewhere behind him was his fiancée, or one of them anyway, Akane Tendo. She had already expressed her mixture of anger and grief at his intentions, and was refusing to watch the finish.
The plan had seemed so simple at the time. Kuno had long professed himself to be in love with Ranma's cursed female form, unwilling or unable to recognize that the two bodies, male and female, were one and the same person. Ranma would grant Kuno a date with his beloved "pigtailed girl," and during the course of said date would use the sword's last wish to remove his curse. Unfortunately, the entire affair had involved far more difficulties than he had ever imagined, with both his father and Akane interfering. But he had persevered, and victory was within sight at last.
He just had to do this one last thing. Kiss Kuno. Something long feared in his darkest nightmares, the ones from which he had to force himself to wake, shaking with horror.
Genma Saotome found himself unable to bear the humiliation of watching his only son, female though the boy might be at the moment, go through with kissing another boy to gain the last wish. Particularly since it was Ranma who would get the wish and the ungrateful boy would almost certainly waste it on himself, and not use if for his father's sake as was right and proper. It was enough to make a man seek comfort in a bottle of sake. With one last scathing insult regarding his son's "manliness," or lack thereof, the man turned and fled the scene. As he left he gave a thought to the boy's mother, glad she and her katana were not here to witness the disgusting event.
Ranma tilted his head up, ignoring his father's departure. He could feel Kuno's breath on his face, tickling his lips. Lips which would soon be pressed ...
"Aaaugh! I can't do it!"
His fist struck out with devastating aim, sending Kuno flying through the air. Clenching both hands in front of himself, he ground out the words, "I just ... plain ... can't! This date is now over!"
Unable to bear what he had almost done, Ranma tried to run. But he was pulled up short when his hand was grabbed from behind. He turned around to glare at the boy behind him, yanking his hand free.
"Hold on, pigtailed girl, don't go," insisted Kuno, ignoring the blood dripping down from his swelling nose. "I truly ... truly ... enjoyed our date today."
Ranma's features shifted to a look of confusion. He stared at Kuno, wondering where this was going.
The young man stepped back, drawing himself up to his full height. He slowly pulled the sword from the sheath at his side, holding it aloft. In his most noble voice, he pronounced, "From the beginning, I had intended to give you the final wish as a gift ..."
Ranma felt hope bursting forth again. "You what?!" Maybe, maybe it wasn't too late after all! His eyes grew starry, glistening with the thought of finally being rid of the curse. ‹Oh Kuno,› he thought, ‹How could I have misjudged him?›
"Wishbringer!" Kuno proclaimed loudly. "Now comes the final wish! I wish ..."
Ranma leaped forward, slapping his hand over the boy's mouth. "Er ... don't you want to know what I'd like you to wish for?"
"But I already know what you want most," Kuno said to the girl before him, haughty yet confused.
"I really, really don't think you do," Ranma told him seriously.
Kuno frowned, brow furrowing. He had been certain that his love would want a commemoration of their fist date. But from her expression, not to mention the expression on Akane's face as well, perhaps he should confirm this. "Well then, tell me beauteous one, what is your heart's desire?"
Ranma breathed deeply, unable to believe that this moment had come. But he had to be careful. Kuno was the one who would have to make the wish and Ranma didn't want any screw ups. Even more, he had to get Kuno to make the wish without revealing that the girl he had dated was really a boy.
"You ... can't see it, but I have a deep and terrible curse. A curse which has caused me way too much trouble and humiliation. If you really, truly want to make me happy, you'll wish for this curse to be removed from my life!"
Kuno's frown deepened. "But ... how could this be? You are beautiful, wonderful, strong, perfect in every way! What curse could one so fair as you possibly bear?"
"Please, Kuno-senpai," Ranma practically begged. "Please just make the wish. For me?" He looked up adoringly, batting his eyelashes.
The young man holding the sword pondered further. It made no sense, none at all. Still, it this was truly her fondest desire ... Yes, he would give her the gift that she wanted.
"Wishbringer! I wish that the great and terrible curse be removed forever from the pigtailed girl's life!"
The sword rang, metallic words echoing in their ears. "Your wish is my command!"
There was a flash of light, forcing them all to shield their eyes for a moment. Ranma was afraid to reopen his eyes, wondering if his long sought cure could really have come to pass. Keeping his eyes closed, he lifted his hands to his chest, even as he heard a swiftly indrawn breath from Akane. He pressed his hands inward, seeking the hard, flat chest of his male form - only to encounter the oversized mammary protuberances with which he was much too damn familiar.
His eyes shot open and he gazed down in disbelief. Yep, the boobs were still there.
"What the hell went wrong?!" he screamed. Off to the side, Akane shook her head, equally clueless.
"It ... it did not work, my love?" asked Kuno. He turned his head, narrowing his eyes at the sword. "Wishbringer! Explain!"
The metallic voice rang out once more. "The final wish was granted. The contracted obligation of three wishes has been fulfilled. This hypercosmic link is now sealed." The sword fell silent, never to speak again.
"What did you do wrong, you idiot?!" Ranma screamed. He grabbed the sword and kicked Kuno into the stratosphere.
"Now you listen to me, Wishbringer or whatever the hell you are!" he shouted. "You better grant me my wish or I'll sell you for scrap metal, y'hear! I wish for you to remove my Jusenkyo curse and make me a guy permanently!" He paused. "Dammit, listen to me! You better do it!" He began beating the sword against a large stone sticking out of the ground. "Make me a guy, dammit! Make me a guy!"
Ranma felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked around, wild eyed, to see Akane frowning sympathetically. "I don't think that's going to work," she said sadly.
"Arggh!" With a mighty wrench he snapped the blade off the hilt, then tied it in a knot, and finally crushed it into a wadded lump of metal. Drawing his arm back, he threw as hard as he could, and the two teenagers watched it vanish over the horizon.
"I don't understand," Ranma whispered. "I heard him! He did wish for my curse to be removed. And the sword said it was granted!"
Akane just shook her head. "I don't understand either. Come on, let's go home. No point sticking around here any longer."
At first Ranma walked beside her in silence, but after a time his frustration boiled over, causing him to grumble, "Dammit, I ought to be cured! I should be a guy now! I shouldn't ever turn into a girl again!"
Akane nodded, but her ability to offer sympathy was growing strained. His schemes for getting cured always seemed to turn out like this. Furthermore, he hadn't listened to a single one of her arguments against this whole date plan.
After a brief internal struggle she managed to refrain from saying something sarcastic. Instead she simply replied, "Yeah, it's like it didn't do anything. You're obviously still a girl."
"Yeah, and ... and ... uh ..." Ranma stared off into space, his expression slowly metamorphosing into abject terror. In a hoarse whisper, he asked, "You don't suppose, it wouldn't, it couldn't have removed only my ability to change? And left me a girl?"
He stopped, spinning around wildly, seeking any source of hot water. There! A snack stand set up along the trail. He ran up to it as fast as he could, skidding to a stop right in front.
"Quick!" he demanded. "Gimme some hot water!"
The young man behind the counter stared at him, perplexed. "We, uh, don't sell hot water."
"Anything hot!" Ranma yelled. "As long as it's liquid!"
Akane had caught up, but simply stood there shaking her head at her fiancé's antics.
The man shrugged his shoulders. "All we got are cold drinks. Sorry. Only thing hot I got is my thermos of coffee." He made the mistake of looking at it, giving away its location.
"Thanks!" Ranma grabbed it in the blink of an eye, before any protest could be formed. An instant later he had uncapped it, and dumped the steaming contents over his head. He gave a yelp as he was scalded, but wasted no time examining his chest.
A chest which this time was flat, muscular, and above all, male.
Ranma drew the back of his hand across his forehead, releasing a relieved sigh. He tried to hand the thermos back to the startled man, who was standing there frozen, staring at the boy who had taken the place of the very buxom girl. Deciding that the guy wouldn't recover anytime soon, Ranma placed the thermos down on the counter. He walked off, trailed by Akane.
"Looks like I still got the curse," Ranma said, almost cheerfully. He was still upset at not being cured, but that didn't begin to compare to how he would have felt to learn that he was stuck as a girl for the rest of his life.
"Looks like," Akane agreed. "Do you think we could get home without you doing anything else embarrassing?"
Ranma shrugged. "What could be more embarrassing than turning into a girl when you get wet?"
Akane simply rolled her eyes and continued walking.
Later, over dinner, Ranma was forced to divulge the whole embarrassing 'wish incident,' with Akane filling in the gaps he tried to leave out. By the time the explanation wound to a close bitter words were exchanged in an all too familiar manner - Akane complaining about Ranma's stupidity in going on a date with Kuno, Ranma sniping that Akane wouldn't even know how to go on a date. All too soon they were in a heated argument, although they continued to eat and did not move from their places.
Across from them Akane's sister Nabiki ate placidly, accustomed to the young couple's quarrels. At one end of the table knelt the oldest sister, Kasumi, while the girls' father, Soun Tendo, sat at the remaining end, both equally adept at ignoring the acrimonious exchange between the reluctant fiancés. Whenever the pair paused for breath, one of the other three would suggest possible explanations for the sword's claim that the wish had been granted, even though Ranma still changed between male and female forms.
Nabiki's first contribution, suggesting that perhaps it had been necessary for Ranma to change back to male one last time before never changing again was shot down as soon as it was proposed. Ranma turned to her with a disgusted look.
"I wish. Three blocks from home that little old lady with the ladle splashed me, like always. I turned into a girl, like always." He sighed with resignation. "I barely noticed, I'm so used to it. Anyway I changed back to a guy as soon as I got home."
With that he turned back to Akane to make a comment about her lack of sex appeal, only to scowl when she gave an unflattering imitation of the bimbo act he had put on for Kuno. Kasumi's thought that perhaps there was a time delay before the cure took effect was met with a shrug. Soun's thought that Nabiki might have been right, but that the sword had reinstated the curse when it was crumpled, resulted in an intense glare from the cursed boy which almost left the man in tears.
Taking a break from the ongoing feud with the girl at his side, Ranma's glance swept across the people around the table, stopping at the empty spot beside Nabiki. "Say, where's pop, anyway? He left before we did. Ought to've beat us home."
Soun looked up, chin quivering. "Your father called not long before you came home. Saotome-kun said there had been some sort of trouble. He escorted the victim home and said he'll be staying a few days to help out."
Kasumi suggested, in a worried yet light tone, "It must be something very serious, for Uncle Saotome to miss dinner."
Ranma snorted. "More likely he's mooching off some gullible sod with a nice home and a good cook."
"Who cares about the panda?" Nabiki asked scathingly, wanting to get back to the sword and its wishes. She stared intently at the boy sitting across from her. "Tell me what Kuno said again. His exact words."
Ranma did so. Nabiki frowned when he was done. After a few minutes she finally said, slowly, "You don't suppose there might be some other pigtailed girl out there, do you? With a curse of her own? I mean, if there is, the sword might have felt she was a closer match, being a real girl and all."
Ranma stared at her, flummoxed. Kuno hadn't said his name, had he? Ranma hadn't even thought to suggest that he use his name in the wish. Besides, Kuno probably would have resisted the notion, despising as he did the boy he knew by the name Ranma Saotome. The fact that Kuno had once heard his female form called by the same name, many months ago at the gymnastics match, was probably long forgotten by the crazed kendoist.
As this thought consumed him, Ranma slowly leaned forward and beat his head on the table repeatedly. Somewhere out there was a girl, her hair tied back in a pigtail, who had been living with some great and terrible curse. Now the curse would be gone, and she would have no idea how it had happened, though no doubt she'd be thrilled to be free of whatever it was. If only it hadn't been his wish that she'd gotten by accident!
"It was a mistake anyone could have made," Akane said, sniffing and no longer sounding at all sympathetic, still a bit riled from the things he'd said. "You should be used to your so-called cures turning out like this by now."
Ranma muttered something against the table surface. It might have been "Stupid tomboy."
Days passed. Life went on. Ranma changed into a girl many times due to accidents with cold water, each time returning to masculine form as quickly as he could manage to get his hands on hot water. The young martial artist argued with Akane and had run-ins with the girls who wanted to marry him and the rivals who wanted to kill him.
After a couple of weeks, Christmas Eve arrived. The family sat down to a large dinner.
Ranma ate heartily, thoroughly enjoying the meal. He contemplated the food on his plate, and the fact that he could take his time to savor it without having it stolen. Reminded by the thought, he looked up and said, "Pops sure is taking his time coming home. Wonder when he's gonna get back?"
A small smile formed on his lips as he reflected upon how, despite the troubles in his life, things had been considerably more peaceful these last weeks.
"Oh my," Kasumi exclaimed. "I just remembered. You received a letter today, Ranma-kun. With a foreign stamp."
She stood quickly and left the room. Returning a minute later, she handed a white envelope to Ranma.
"Thanks," he told Kasumi absently, taking in his father's handwriting on the envelope. Slowly he opened it, pulled out the single sheet of paper, and read. When he finished, he folded it up thoughtfully, slid it back into the envelope, and stared off into space.
"So what did he have to say?" Akane asked.
"He won't be coming back," Ranma told them distractedly. "Says that just after he left us that day, the last day we saw him, he was passing an alley and saw a guy being mugged. Saved him. Says the guy was some rich Australian business tycoon, who offered pop a temporary job as a bodyguard."
Everyone was listening, spellbound. "I'm guessing pop took the job 'cause it wasn't hard work for him, and it gave him the chance to live and eat in some luxury hotel. He even escorted the guy back to Australia. Probably looked at it like a vacation, and this man was paying for it."
"But why isn't he back yet?" Soun wailed.
Ranma looked down at the envelope in his hands again. "Seems like pop can't come back. Every time he gets near the airport or coast he gets terrible, killing headaches. Claims they get worse the closer he gets. Doctors can't figure it out. Told him it's probably something in his head. Er, you know what I mean. So he's stuck there unless he finds a way to cure it."
"You mean you'll never see your father again?" Kasumi asked sadly.
Ranma shrugged. "Guess I could visit him in Australia. If I wanted to."
Akane lifted an eyebrow. "You don't sound too sad about it."
Her fiancé shrugged. "It's ... I'll miss him I guess. Some. A little. But he's screwed up my life so much, in so many ways. It's kinda, I dunno, a relief, sort of. Knowing he can't cause me no more trouble."
Nabiki grinned. "Kind of like a terrible curse has been lifted from your life, huh?"
Everyone exchanged sudden, startled glances. They resumed eating in silence, and Ranma told himself that it was only his imagination which insisted he heard a soft metallic chuckle in the air.
THE ENDAuthor's note:
Just a little one shot I was inspired to write while waiting on the pre-read for chapter six of Fighting Chance, which was itself posted last weekend.
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