Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2, its characters and concepts belong to Rumiko Takahashi and those enterprises to whom she has given publishing rights. Ah! Megami-sama, its characters and concepts belong to Fujishima Kosuke and those enterprises to whom such rights were given. This work does not intend to infringe upon those rights, nor is it intended for commercial use.
"Pigtailed girl! Come to my arms and let us declare our love!" declared the 'Blue Thunder' in a rare day he managed to surprise the pseudo girl and embrace her from behind. Ranma reacted as expected, breaking the embrace and kicking the kendoist into geo-stationary orbit. She was in a very bad mood today, just sending him into low earth orbit wouldn't cut it.
"GET A GRIP MORON!" she screamed to the clueless martial artist before he disappeared into the atmosphere.
---
Shampoo was making a large delivery, running her bike on the top of walls and fences like it was the easiest thing in the world. She wasn't showing off, as certain people believed; she was just trying her hardest to avoid one of the worst effects of being cursed by Jusenkyou.
Being a water magnet.
And yet she had to return to the normal walking level to handle the ramen and pick up the money, a moment of vulnerability she learned to hate with good reason.
Jusenkyou struck again.
Just behind her a couple of small kids were dueling with water pistols. They were so distracted by their game that they didn't even see the amazon become collateral damage and disappear, leaving just her clothes as proof she had been there, nor did they see the evil gaze a small cat with purple socks was giving them.
---
Ryouga stood before a town's gate. By the look of the town ahead, he has just arrived in Nagoya, probably breaking the world record for walking from Nagoya to Kobe. A true feat of stamina considering the weight of his gear.
Was he receiving any praise? Was there a reception committee?
No, of course not. People only cared about the fact that he was trying to reach Tokyo and not Nagoya. Should anyone know they would be laughing at the poor lost boy, but never in front of him. That would be very dangerous and the only person who did that was Ranma.
Ryouga gritted his teeth. 'Ranma, you are going down this time!' he swore mentally, bracing his heavy backpack and returning to the road.
---
Ukyou was having a very good day. Until she saw a trash can move by the corner of her eye, that is.
Moving trash cans could mean only one thing – Tsubasa.
Grabbing her titanic spatula she prepared to beat the living daylights out of that metallic bin.
Why couldn't the strange boy leave her alone?
---
"Shampoo, would you like to go on a date with me?" asked the almost blind amazon.
Cologne shook her head in disgust and used her feared pogo stick against the boy's head.
"I said it before and I'll say it again, Mousse. Leave the plants alone and go back to work!"
The boy mumbled something inaudible and returned to the kitchen.
---
"Today," swore the youngest Tendou to the heavens in a maniac tone, "today I'll cook something nice!"
Had Ranma been present he would have added "or kill trying". Unfortunately for the kitchen he wasn't and soon the place was looking like a domestic representation of 'Guernica' that would have made Picasso proud.
Kasumi was off running some errands and every single member of the household had similar excuses for their absences, although she only believed Kasumi's. 'The jerks,' she thought. Without any guinea pigs, err, volunteers available, Akane decided to try her latest culinary invention herself.
The Kami were merciful this time and the girl promptly fainted.
Small wonder the chem club worshipped her.
---
That night they were sulking. Unaware of each other they all wondered aloud at precisely the same moment.
"This sucks. I wish I could get rid of my problems."
To their immense regret, someone heard their words.
---
Mara was very content.
The demoness first class was in charge of a new mission: hell's answer to the goddess relief office, more specifically. If the heavens were awarding mortals wishes, so would they, but in their own tortuous way. The idea was really simple, just pick a group of mortals, pool them together, and have them remove their own fears, inefficiencies, problems or weakness from themselves... and have those difficulties among the other mortals. A problem is never too great unless you're the one suffering from it, right?
'This will be interesting,' thought the demoness. 'I can't wait to see them squirming in their new predicaments.' Picking up her schedule from her desk, she decided on a location to start her new job.
'Nerima... ah, yes, I've heard about this place,' a smirk grew on her lips. 'Most interesting indeed!'
---
"Ranma, this is your fault!" yelled a young girl with short, dark bluish hair, as she sprinted along the street. "We are going to be late again!"
"Not my fault, Akane!" protested another young girl, whose bright red hair was braided in a pigtail, running on the top of a steel fence. "What can I do if my stupid old man used all the hot water in the kettle and I had to wait for Kasumi to heat more? I don't want to hold those stupid buckets either, ya know?"
"Why bother changing back when you can't even avoid the only woman in Nerima who's actually older than Cologne?" retorted Akane. "What kind of martial artist can't avoid an old lady and her ladle?"
"The kind that is way better than you are, you uncute tomboy!"
The girl moving on the ground just growled in frustration. "Baka! Shut up and run!"
But their run was quickly interrupted. A very attractive woman was just sitting in the steel fence, showing off her long and luscious legs. Ranma was forced to return to ground level, but both stopped when the woman spoke.
"Tendou Akane and Saotome Ranma... how fortunate to find the two of you together," said the demoness, carefully studying the pair. "That will save me some work."
"Ranma, do you know her?" asked the youngest Tendou, gritting her teeth. 'If she's another fiancée, Ranma, you're so going to die.'
"No, I don't think so," she answered, completely oblivious to her fiancée's distress.
"Oh, you don't know me," Mara said with a large smile that caused the pair's danger sense to spark wildly. "But soon you will." Before they could react her symbols of power flared into life and the trio vanished from the streets of Nerima.
---
Ranma and Akane weren't the only Furinkan students running late that morning. Ukyou was so late that she decided to drop the idea of actually making it to the first period. Her restaurant was unusually full and the breakfast crowd was just voracious. She could have closed it earlier, but that would be a very bad business decision. Nothing was important as having satisfied customers – turning them down was just an invitation not to come back again and Ukyou's Ucchan wasn't successful enough to refuse clients. Besides, first class today was English and with Hinako-sensei as teacher, chances were very good she wouldn't lose anything important.
Bucket duty was much easier to withstand with a full wallet and she could even luck out and have Ranma for company. With those thoughts she was closing the restaurant's door when she noticed someone coming.
"Sorry, we're closing until lunch. Please come back then!" she said in a cheerful voice without bothering to turn her head.
"Good," said a woman in a sultry voice. "We wouldn't want to have your place sacked while you are away, would we?"
"I beg your pardon?" asked Ukyou finally facing the woman. 'She's pretty,' thought the chef. 'She could easily beat Hinako-sensei in her adult body.'
"Oh, you'll be begging for much more than just my pardon before the day's over, Ukyou," answered the demoness in an equally cheerful tone. Before Ukyou could reach for her giant spatula to face the unexpected threat something in the woman's face began to spark and darkness engulfed her.
---
'Three down, three more to go,' thought the demoness, standing in the front of the Cat Café. 'I think I'll find the two of the others here.'
She knocked on the restaurant's door. It was quite early for it to be open but the noise alone told Mara that her victims must be near.
"We are closed," a masculine voice came from behind the door. "We won't open for another two hours."
"Mousse? But I'm here to see you..." she pleaded in a husky voice.
Quickly the door opened and the demoness was greeted by a tall young man with long white robes. "How may I help you, miss?" asked Mousse, not quite looking at the surprise guest.
"Don't you want to see me, Mousse?" she teased. To her satisfaction the young amazon gasped soundly when he lowered his glasses and looked at her eyes.
From inside the restaurant another voice came, a female one this time.
"Mousse, who is on door?"
"It's for me, Shampoo!"
"For you?" asked the puzzled amazon. She couldn't remember the last time Mousse had a visit or even if that had ever happened before. But for a part-time cat Shampoo wasn't very curious and she returned her attention to the huge pile of dishes in front of her.
"Ah, but I'm here to see you too, Shampoo," said the person at the door.
'Who could be visiting?' wondered the amazon. Her surprise grew tenfold when she saw the strange and extremely beautiful woman standing by the door and looking at Mousse with a cat-that-caught-the-canary grin. She was obviously a foreigner and she had very strange markings on her face. "Yes, what can Shampoo do?"
"Why, you two can come with me."
"HONORED ANCESTORS!" shouted the matriarch of the Joketsuzoku from the top of the stairs, startling the young amazons. Cologne had felt a very odd presence from her room, one she hadn't felt in many years and couldn't properly identify, so she decided to investigate. As soon as she laid her eyes on the guest, Mara's figure told her everything she needed to know.
Mara just touched the pair on the shoulder, who were both still starring at the pale face of the matriarch. "Bye, bye," said the demoness to the Joketsuzoku elder, and they were gone.
Cologne fell on her knees, a much more painful experience from atop a pogo stick. For the first time in several decades fear froze Cologne's heart and she was at a loss. "A demon, and high-ranking one, came for my great-granddaughter and poor Mousse," she babbled. "What am I going to do?"
---
"One more player and we can start our little game," Mara said to no one in particular in an extremely dark room, obtaining only muffled sounds as reply. "Be dears and try to relax. I'll be back in no time."
She teleported to an open field with a large path of woods and a high mountain just ahead of her position. Mara didn't want to use the teleport spell to an unknown place, but that was her best hope to find the lost boy, the focus of the spell. Even in normal conditions a teleport could be quite disorienting and going from a dark room to broad daylight didn't help either. Another problem for teleporters is that they never know what will be behind them, be it demon hunters, meddling goddesses or screaming martial artists.
"WHERE ON EARTH AM I NOW?"
Mara nearly jumped out of her skin. She really hated to teleport like that.
"Excuse me, miss," said Ryouga, not quite sure how the woman appeared out of nowhere, but unwilling to let the opportunity to ask for directions slide. It had been quite some time since he'd seen another person. "Do you know the way to Nerima Ward?"
Mara took her time to collect her thoughts and lower her blood pressure. The person talking to her could be no other than Hibiki Ryouga.
Before answering the demoness walked three steps in the boy's direction, entering his personal space and disabling several of his higher brain functions.
"Nerima Ward?" she purred. "You want to see Akane, don't you?"
With the beautiful woman just inches away of him, all the shy boy managed to do was scratch the back of his head and nod.
"Ah, but I can bring you to where Akane is right now," she continued teasing Ryouga, caressing his cheeks with her sleek fingers. Ryouga's brain was reduced to mush and he was on the verge of severe blood loss. "And then we can all play a nice game. Would you like that, hmm?"
Ryouga nodded again. "Good," replied the demoness. "Off we go."
---
Ukyou was firmly tied to a chair and totally unable to speak. That scared her, because she wasn't gagged or something akin, she just wasn't capable of speech. She couldn't figure out who would want to kidnap her or why, either. 'I thought this kind of thing only happened to Akane.' She was straining her bonds again but all her attempts had proved to be futile. By the sounds she was hearing she wasn't the only one in this condition.
Suddenly several lamps were lit, illuminating the room. After a painful instant her eyes grew used to the new brightness and she saw other people.
Standing in the middle of the room was the strange woman who had somehow captured her effortlessly. And in the five other corners she could see the rest of the Nerima Wrecking Crew, similarly tied in chairs and looking as surprised as she was. 'That's bad,' she pondered. 'She's good enough to capture all of us. Who's going to come rescue us?'
Ranma in his uncursed body was sitting to her left and Ryouga was in her right, with Mousse in the other extremity of the room. Akane was between Mousse and Ryouga and Shampoo was between Ranma and Mousse. With a feeling of dread she realized that she was positioned in the vertex of a hexagram. 'A demonic cultist!' she shuddered. 'I'm too young to die!'
Her thoughts of impending doom were interrupted when her captor picked up a microphone and began to speak.
"Hello my dear mortals. I'm Mara, Demoness First Class, and I'll be your hostess for our little game today. You've all been selected because you wished your problems would go away. Beware what you wish for, because hell may decide to grant your request."
Again, the only answers she received were muffled sounds.
"Ah, yes," she said, snapping her fingers, "you may speak now."
"WHAT'S THE MEANING OF THIS!?" Ryouga bellowed.
"Yeah, ya don't expect us to believe that crap!" contributed Ranma.
Still smiling, Mara closed her eyes. When she opened her eyes again they were shining bright red. The small demonstration was more than enough to silence them.
"Ahem, like I said," continued the demoness, "I'll be your hostess. The game's rules are pretty simple. All you have to do is pick two defects, problems or fears from yourselves that you want to be removed. They can be anything, even a Jusenkyou curse. Then we'll sort them among our other players. Isn't it exciting?"
The adolescents just stared at the demoness in utter disbelief. They couldn't quite believe what they were hearing.
"You just have to write two such characteristics you want to lose, one on each of the cards that are in your laps."
After a long moment where no one dared to even breathe, Ranma exploded.
"I ain't writin' nothin'!" he yelled. "You can't force me."
"Airen right! Shampoo no write too!
"Yeah! Make me, sugar!"
Without showing any trace of irritation the demoness snapped her fingers again. "Ah, sweet silence. Now, now, Ukyou, that's an excellent idea. I think I'll do that. What about wishing away your cooking ability? Perhaps Akane will like it better." Unconsciously Ranma nodded, causing the youngest Tendou to fume. Luckily for Ranma she was tied and unable to speak.
"And you, Ranma. Perhaps I'll remove your martial arts skill. It causes you so much trouble, all those fights. I think you'd be better off without it, don't you agree?"
Ranma paled visibly and vigorously shook his head. That was probably his worst nightmare.
"And you Shampoo," she purred, closing the distance that separated them swiftly. "What can I do for you?" she asked as she waved her fingers through the amazon's long purple locks. "Hmm... your exquisite hair, maybe? You must hate all those people looking at you, curious to know if it's natural or not. No? Then you'll write something, right? Good girl."
Returning to the center of the room the demoness resumed her speech.
"Don't look at me like that," she said in mock-hurt. "I'm nowhere as bad as you think I am. I could have brought the Kunous to play too, you know," she pointed out. There was an important lesson to be learnt here, notably: when dealing with infernal forces – no matter how bad a situation seemed, there was always a possibility it could become worse. The young kids shuddered at the thought of receiving some of the qualities that distinguished the Kunous, to the delight of the demoness.
"Now that you know what will happen if you don't play along, I can finish explaining the rules. After you write down what you want to leave behind, one of you will choose a card. If you pick one of your own we'll shuffle the deck and start again, so you don't have to worry about receiving what you wrote. We'll keep going until we run out of cards. It's very simple!"
"You can move your arms now," she said as she snapped her fingers a third time. The ropes holding their arms slid down, but they were still being held by their legs. "You have fifteen minutes to write your wishes. Hurry up or I'll write them down myself and I'm sure you don't want that to happen."
Mousse was the first one to finish the task, having made his two choices in less than a minute. As soon as he put the pen down Mara collected the cards and read them.
"So soon Mousse?" she asked in the playful voice they all hated already. "Ah, you naughty boy, you shouldn't have written that!"
The words were lost on the amazon, however. He had a very silly smile in his face and his glasses were almost fogging up. You didn't need to be telepathic to know what he must be thinking.
'Never be a blind duck again! Never be a blind duck again! Never be a blind duck again! Never be a blind duck again! Never be a blind duck again! Never be a blind duck again!'
Ranma glared at the duck boy as he repeated his new mantra, wishing he could kill him with the power of his mind alone. As dense as Ranma could be he was well capable of guessing what Mousse had written.
'The jerk! What if I end bein' blind as he is? Or what if Akane ends bein' a duck for real this time? Or me, how will my curse react to his? I'll end a female duck, or what? Oh, I know what I will write down.' The smirk he was well know for crept back onto his face as he mentally pictured a female Mousse, or even better, a female Ryouga. 'That would be just priceless! He always said my curse was nothing! Wait until Kunou hits on him.' He would have laughed if he were able to.
Ranma didn't have a good idea about what to write in his second card and decided to guess what the others would select. To anticipate an enemy's next move was crucial in martial arts and Ranma was sure this applied to such situations as well. Ryouga's picks were as obvious as Mousse's but he had no idea what Ukyou would choose. 'Akane will probably ask to be able to cook or swim. I don't think she don't wanna be a tomboy,' he concluded. 'Now Shampoo,' he froze at the thought. 'She'll wish her curse off! I can't become a c-c-c-cat, I'll go nuts for sure!'. As much as he hated losing a technique so powerful, the Nekoken had to go.
Mara was upon him in an instant and laughed hard when she saw what the boy had chosen. "Interesting wording, Saotome, very interesting."
He dismissed the demoness words as bait and returned to study the others' reactions.
Ukyou was sulking. Along with Akane they were the only ones not cursed by Jusenkyou's waters, even if she thought Ryouga wasn't cursed either. 'This ain't fair,' she thought. 'I can't even think about something to write and I'll probably end up cursed. Gah, Akane may even transmit her cooking skills to me. I'll be ruined!' She was considering writing silly things just to be done with it when the demoness whispered in her ear.
"I know what you are thinking," she said. "Do you think Ranma will have a cute fiancée that makes him lose his mind when splashed with cold water? Do you really want to take a chance? Choose wisely."
She left Ukyou alone to her thoughts and went to pick Ryouga's cards.
Ryouga took the same time as Mousse to decide what to write, but he was just too nervous to stop trembling. Only when he was sure his penmanship wouldn't resemble Happousai's did he write down his two curses, the family one and Jusenkyou's. He could imagine a Ranma without a navigational sense whatsoever. 'That's perfect! If he gets it he won't be around Akane so much and I will! No more P-chan! No more pork cracks! Oh Akane...'
And yet a small part of his mind was nagging him, and the feeling he did something wrong was growing since the demoness took the cards from him without a single comment. His blissful aspect broke apart when he realized that someone else would get the Heituenniichuan's curse and Akane would finally discover the secret identity of her pet pig. Worse, Akane herself might end being cursed!
'I must get those cards back!' he thought desperately, and he tried to break free of his bindings with all of his might.
Mara was thoroughly enjoying watching the young boy vainly struggle against the magical rope that tied down her players.
"Tut, tut, Ryouga," she said. "It's futile. You can't escape from these ropes; they are stronger than a steel cable. But why are you so nervous now? You want to write something different?"
Ryouga shook his head so quickly that Mara thought his neck might break from the stress. She waited a second that seemed like an eternity to the soon-no-longer-lost boy, feigning consideration of his plea, before replying.
"I like those. I think I'll keep them," she finally answered, to the boy's desperation.
'I think it's a good time to get lost for a long time,' he wished. 'Oh, I can't do that anymore.' Ryouga just sunk in his chair. Time to pay the Deepest Dungeon of Despair another visit.
Shampoo was having a hard time deciding her second pick. The first was obvious and she was very happy to get rid of her cat curse, not only for herself, but for Airen as well. She knew well how her curse hampered her chances with the pigtailed boy.
'Shampoo no know what to pick! What Shampoo need if Shampoo have too too perfect body? Nothing to write,' she pondered, until she perceived she was thinking in Japanese again. Broken Japanese. Badly broken Japanese.
With a grin she wrote on her last card. The Kami knew how long she'd tried to learn this stupid language but no matter how hard she'd tried she only made very little progress. 'Even Mousse learn in no time,' she thought. She hated when people mocked her speech, concluded she was stupid because of her grip on the language or worse, impersonated her. No one would laugh now.
Akane had a bunch of possible ideas about what to write. Any kind of restraint she might have shown was thrown out the window by Mousse's actions. He'd made his own choices obvious to everyone, after all. While cooking and swimming were both good picks, she decided to do some deeper soul searching. Besides, she really didn't want to risk giving her culinary skills to Ukyou. The girl depended on them for a living and besides, out of all the other girls after Ranma, Ukyou was the one Akane related to and thought of as a friend, strange as that might seem. Also, she remembered very well what had happened the last time Ukyou dropped her restaurant and joined the freeloader squad at Tendo-ke.
She settled for one of her characteristics, one that was hindering her in almost everything she did, from the Art to cooking and even acting. Her short fuse (or no fuse according to Ranma) always caused her problems, made her act on the spur of the moment without any consideration for the consequences, jump to conclusions and act before having all the facts, among other things. She would repent from time to time, but it was so much easier to be angry, as if her anger excused her behavior. Sometimes it even made her feel like a passenger inside her own body, just a vehicle for her strong emotions. 'I hope Ryouga will get this. He has a bad temper already, so I don't think he'll even notice it. I wonder what he will choose... perhaps his shyness. He wouldn't transmit his sense of direction, would he? Ranma will finally be rid of his girl side, he must be enjoying this... when did he change back anyway?' she mused briefly before returning to the more pressing task.
Swimming was not related to her temperament or so she believed, and she loved the only time she did manage to enter the ocean without nearly drowning with the aid of a magical swimsuit. From all the pain and suffering about to be redistributed among them it didn't seem very important and so she took that. The demoness quickly grabbed her cards and the only person still considering was Ukyou.
The okonomiyaki chef was getting nervous. She was the last one and everyone was looking at her. 'Like the time pressure isn't enough,' she complained inwardly. 'Gah! What to do? I don't want that monster to make my choices!'
Inspiration struck suddenly. It was something she was keeping a secret, but it wouldn't be her problem anymore so she decided on it. Her own cross-dressing habits, product of her oath of revenge against the Saotomes, had attracted a fair number of male cross-dressers, who just expected her to love them since they shared the same 'hobby'. Like she was doing it because she liked it! Tsubasa was the only one, praised be all the Kami, after her with the obsession that characterized the Neriman martial artists. 'Perhaps he will leave me in peace now!' she thought as she wrote 'cross-dresser magnet' on the small sheet of paper. With a tinge of guilt she wondered if that would affect her relationship with Konatsu. She didn't love the meek ninja but she honestly enjoyed their friendship and wanted it to remain as it was.
Looking around to find something that might help her, she let her eyes linger on the pigtailed boy. 'Ranchan,' she thought dreamily, and her second choice became obvious. Her hatred for the boy's sorry excuse of a father, that asshole that had left her behind all those years ago, was enormous. 'What kind of man steals and then leaves a six year old on the middle of the road? And look at all the damage the bastard did to Ranma, his own son!'
But Ranma always forgave his father, no matter how much pain he caused. It was just his nature. The fact that the lazy panda was still alive was proof enough of how much Ranma loved him.
Kuonji Ukyou, on the other hand, wasn't capable of such a feat. Perhaps it was the way she was; perhaps she spent too many years of her life training to avenge her family's honor, slowly gathering the kind of anger necessary to apply a 'three year smiling death', but she couldn't just pretend it hadn't happened! She couldn't just forget it!
And she knew Ranma wouldn't leave her father behind like Genma did to her. 'I'm just like Ryouga in this aspect and Ranchan's closer to Akane,' she thought bitterly.
'Let your anger go' was a counsel she heard a lot, especially on the rare occasions she told people of her promise of revenge. She decided to do that literally. She handed the demoness the cards and braced herself for the worst.
Mara shuffled the small deck of cards that were glowing in her hands. She picked up a cubic like object the size of a soccer ball from a box. "Everything set? Shall we play?"
Author's notes: As strange as it may seem, this story is based on a cold war intelligence exercise. The exercise was based on the capture by the police of two thieves. The police, however, lacked evidence to arrest the pair for good and decided to put the thieves in two separated cells and offer each one a deal, to incriminate the other. To sweeten the deal they offered, besides immunity, a large money prize. The catch was, if both of them accepted the deal, both would end up behind bars without any cash.
While the right thing to do is to refuse the deal and walk free, there's always the possibility that the other partner may become greedy and accept the deal. Such is the dilemma faced by the Ranma 1/2 crew and, quite frankly, I don't think they trust each other that much.
It is also based on how we perceive our own problems and the problems of the people that surround us. It is usual to overestimate the formers while underestimating the latters. Such is human nature.
Please review my story, it is greatly appreciated.
If anyone is interested in pre-reading this story, drop me an email, I surely could use some more.
And speaking of pre-readers, I must offer my special thanks to Kiririn-san for the extraordinary work done revising this story so far, above and beyond the call of duty. Doumo arigatou gozaimasu!
By Fangorn (1-VIII-2003)
fangorn_ff@terra.com.br