Consequential of Boredom
Chapter 1
"I hereby declare before man and God that I have no claim on the characters of Ranma half." So disclaim I.
Authors notes:- Just another story idea I had, anyone who hates Ranma-chan stories is gonna hate this one. On the other hand, things will change between Ranma and….. I'll let you find out by reading. Bwahahaha!
/ and so it starts \
It was a peaceful Sunday morning in Nerima; even the usually noisy parts were eerily silent. Of course that could change at a moments notice and the honest people of Nerima truly hoped it did and soon. The longer there was peace the messier it would be when the fall-out came. If they only knew what was happening they'd have been running for the safety of Juuban.
Happosai sat in his place of honour at the dining room table and sighed deeply in melancholy. It was hard being him sometimes, now don't snort like that, see how you feel after you've been around for nearly four hundred years. Human emotions were no longer a mystery to him, the latest scientific discoveries were shed with hardly a moments notice, even women were a rulebook he'd read so many times they were so predictable to him. He wouldn't even continue to pursue them except for that one miscalculation when he was sixty five. He'd discovered an ancient Chinese manuscript that told of the three forms of life energy that pervaded everyone's bodies.
The most common was Ki, which was what most warriors used to power themselves. With a little knowledge a warrior could go far with just ki. He hadn't been satisfied with that though had he? The second energy form was called Shen which was the power formed by a combination of knowledge, intelligence (which is different to knowledge) and will. What is Shen you might be asking, well according to the ancient text he'd found it was the basis for all magic, even that utilized by the gods themselves was due to Shen, it was just a matter of scale. Knowledge of how the world worked was essential, the ability to understand cause and effect and the will to push beyond what others called reality and there you have it. Spells were written only to guide the humans mind back to the same result each time, and soon mankind believed that they had to use the spell to create a given effect and so called wild magic passed into the annals of history.
The final and probably most important energy form to Happosai was called Ching, now to understand this fully you only have to examine the actions of a certain diminutive hentai grand-master. That's right, Ching is all about sex. What isn't known by most is that while the first two energies are an infinite and ever regenerating resource. Ching on the other hand is a finite energy source. Every time a person has sex in their life they use a part of this energy, the better the sex the more energy they lose and when it's all gone you die. Where are we going with this you might wonder, well to put it simply Happosai and many others believe that it is possible to live forever by simply restraining their sex drive, after all no sex means no energy lost means living for eternity. On the other hand that proves to be too hard for many people and they can't maintain the required level of discipline. There is however another way. Those with the knowledge may be able to convert the other two forms into Ching and thus they can have sex as much as they please and still not die(and that's a good thing, no?). And then there's one more way, a way so despicable that the Amazons swore to hunt down the only known practitioner and kill him.
Like the Queen song asks, 'Who want's to live forever?' Well Happosai hadn't heard of that song, not in sixteen ninety-four anyway, but he'd certainly have put his hand up if he had.
When they failed to carry out their death threats they posted prohibitions about the little hentai and washed their hands of the situation. You might be tempted to ask what their problem was and because it's such a beautiful day I'll tell you. The method requires the person practicing it to steal the Ching of another living being. Now as humans aren't compatible with other animals the victim would have to be another human and as males often seek out women he decided to steal the Ching from young ladies. Not much of it mind you, in fact he'd never taken more than a day from any single woman. That didn't matter to the Amazons as a day was a day and the small loss was no different than if he'd ended their lives as far as they were concerned.
After he'd reached a century or so he'd figured out what he'd done wrong in the first place but had been unable to change to the ki conversion technique without first using up all the Ching he'd stolen, and as it was the last energy in his store he'd die before he could generate another source of Ching that wasn't tainted. So he'd lived out the remainder of his life as a well known hentai, in fact he was legendary in certain well populated areas. Why only in populated areas, well it's like certain denominations of money, they lose much of their value when being converted. Something like 10 stolen days equals one extra day for Happosai, hence he has to have a large number of nubile females around him to stay alive, that is if he doesn't want to drain any one female too much. Over the years the guilt ate at him and made him perverse, he tried many things to take the Ching in a legitimate way, and then there'd been a breakthrough, for him anyway. Those westerners had started importing underwear into the country and the locals had taken to it like a fish to water, and so had he as he realized that they left residual Ching behind whenever they were sexually aroused or at certain times of the month. Even underwear worn by expectant mothers was heavy with Ching and so began a new chapter in the life of Happosai, the Panty Thief.
Then he'd always known that both parties during the sexual act exuded large quantities of Ching so he became an accomplished voyeur to take advantage of this free floating Ching, and he never looked back. The guilt left him and suddenly he was free to enjoy his new found perversity.
What's all this got to do with now you might ask; well it's all valid background and might lead to a better understanding of some of the events to follow. Getting back to this beautiful Sunday morning he was experiencing and the reason he was sighing. To put it mildly he was bored, please do not adjust you screens, and if you must panic please leave the room in an orderly manner and proceed to the nearest evacuation point. Now that we've gotten rid of the weak lily-livered readers I'll explain why he's bored.
Put simply he didn't have anyone to play with at the moment. Even Kasumi had left with her sisters and headed off to the nearest spa town in the mountains. Nodoka was acting as their chaperone though for the life of him he couldn't figure out why they'd need one, Akane would level half the town if anyone even looked crosswise at her or her sisters. Genma and Soun were off visiting bars in another town as they'd run out of welcome in the local area until they paid off their tabs.
Ranma, his favourite playmate and toy of all time had disappeared earlier and was currently sitting somewhere across the canal, probably sulking about his life. The brat didn't know how good he had it, when Happosai was a child of the same age he'd already been to war for his local lord, he'd killed on the battle field many times since and here was his heir sulking about killing some guy named Saffron. If you asked him he'd done the fool a favour by killing him, what with a name like that. He should have had a much cooler sounding name than that, something like Garter or Brassiere. He dismissed that from his mind as he considered his options for the day. He could always go out on another panty raid, or maybe visit that new baths over in Minato ward, they had only heard vague rumours about him over there. On second thought he didn't really want to wander that far from the dojo at the moment as he didn't want to miss the return of any of the family.
Maybe it was time to spring clean again, he'd finished cataloguing his collection the day before and the ironing had been done. The sigh of reminiscence was much happier as he remembered the silky smooth cloth as he ran a warm iron over them. All that left was the rather large sack in the far corner of the room, it had sat there for nearly fifty years gathering dust, the only time he'd touched it recently was to retrieve the Nanban mirror from its murky depths. It had been so long since he'd actually been in there that he only had a vague recollection of what it contained now.
Decision made he sprang from the cushion and left his rapidly cooling tea and bounded with barely suppressed glee towards the remaining portion of his magical collection. The old man rummaged through the sack pulling out item after item. A witch doctors skull rattle from some long extinct African tribe called the Massawarai was dropped on the pile to be discarded, he'd tried to work with it for the better part of a century before he'd finally given up. A set of rune knuckles used to prophesy the future were placed on the good pile, it sounded funny but the suckers actually worked, especially if you soaked them in mead over night. He moved them to his pocket as he was going to look at them later and find a question to ask them, especially if he came up with a caper. The small jug of two hundred year old mead joined them in his pocket.
As he got to the halfway point in the bag he came out for a glass of well earned sake. Placing the empty saucer down on his bedside table he returned to the sack and climbed inside, it was the only downside of being as old as he was as far as he could tell. If the 'men' of the house had seen him rummaging in the sack like that they'd have been cheering, probably thinking that some magical creation had finally eaten him. Well it was a possibility but not that likely given that he kept the really dangerous stuff on his person at all times. Not that he'd ever use it, mainly to prevent other more unscrupulous people from doing so, and yes there are worse people on the planet than Happosai. He knew as he made it a hobby to kill them as soon as they started to consolidate a power base.
Nope, that's useless, hold on a second, that's the Bra of Venus. Called thus not because it was worn by the goddess, no, that would be plain silly, they didn't have bras back then. No it referred mainly to the fact that any woman wearing it could release her inner feelings for the object of her affections. That might come in useful if the fiancée situation wasn't resolved soon, it was all well and good for Ranma to string these girls along but the longer he took to make a decision the more damage he'd do the girls on the sidelines such as Nabiki.
The 'Ice Queen' thought that she'd fooled everyone with her icy façade but not this old codger, no way was he taken in by the distancing tactics she was using to maintain some objectivity around the pig-tailed martial artist. Her elder sister was hiding a crush as well, he could tell, just not who it was aimed at, but with Ranma in the house and a limited social circle it was a pretty fair bet that Ranma was firmly in the cross-hairs of another beautiful woman.
Of course even a jaded old man could sit back and enjoy the soap opera that was Ranma's life as the bevy of beautiful fiancées continued to vie for his hand in marriage as the 'Wild Horse' had stumbled from one catastrophe to another. The failed wedding had been like a bucket of ice water on the raging hormones of all the teenagers as they realized they'd gone much too far with quite a number of guests injured by exploding viands.
Ukyo and Xian Pu had been conspicuous by their absence ever since. Khu Lon had sent a note of apology that was so cryptic that only Happosai had been able to figure out that it wasn't some vaguely worded challenge to the Saotome and Tendo Clans. The old letch like many others had fallen foul of Amazon written law, at least until he'd learned that verbal laws were passed down to the younger generation of daughters so that they'd know who to exempt from the kisses. His perversity was one of the few things that could stop him from being married to half the tribe.
His questing hand reached canvas as he ran through the final few items in the sack. Nothing so far had felt right for his next prank. It wasn't a matter of effect, more one of scope. He enjoyed the chaos that surrounded Ranma and thought it was terribly dull when only one of his girls got it on with him. That was when he felt the metal edges of something he'd totally forgotten about, he ran a finger over the smooth surface and then smiled in child-like delight as he lifted the small mirror from the sack and into the light of day for the first time in three hundred years.
"Sugoi!! I'd forgotten I had this," he stepped out of the much deflated sack and placed the mirror with a certain amount of reverence on the bedside table, reaching for the sake bottle he poured some more to help him celebrate. The mirror glittered as he viewed it, the golden filigree shone with an inner light, while the plaques that showed various battle scenes seemed to move they were so lifelike.
Everyone who knew anything about mirror magic could tell you there had only ever been one master enchanter, his name had been Erised, and trust me that was his real name, had created so many of the magical mirrors around the world. His final masterpiece had been named 'The mirror of Erised' and history records that this is because it shows the persons greatest need, the thing they wanted the most inside. For some that was acceptance, others saw riches or power. Many had been swallowed by the powerful artefact as they slowly starved to death watching things happen in the mirror. Erised himself was said to be the first victim of his own mirror as he watched himself casting greater and more powerful spells, spells he might even have been able to cast if he'd had the strength of will to pull away from the mirror before it was too late.
Something that very few people knew was that while the mirror of Erised was the most powerful mirror he ever created, there were a number of experiments that preceded its creation. The Nanban mirror was one such, and this was another. This mirror called Etacilpud by those in the know, was a shortcut he'd created so that he could work faster. Basically it duplicated whatever was reflected in its surface, after the user sacrificed some ki to it. Not terribly useful except that whatever magic was held in the item could be shaped to a slightly different purpose as long as it still had a similar base purpose. For example this amulet of love could be turned into an amulet of lust with the greatest of ease, or even more. Of course the original item would be drained of magic and thus useless but there were ways around that.
The old man grinned evilly, this time there was no one here to stop him. He had all the time in the world to work and get this right. Humming merrily to himself he set about finding those prisms he'd put aside earlier. With some careful calculations he made the amulet appear on the mirrors surface three times. Placing a hand against the first battle scene he expended the required amount of ki, sagging slightly he placed the hand against the next scene and again released a large amount of ki into the metal filigree causing it to glow even more. His sight grew dim as he placed his fingers against the final plaque and pushed everything he had left into the magic mirror, he wouldn't know if it worked for several hours as the room faded along with his consciousness.
/ Kasumi \
The first to find her pendant was naturally Kasumi as she clutched her pillow while waking her hand brushed something small and hard. Opening her eyes she allowed them to adjust to the dim light as she pondered what had just happened. She pulled the pillow aside and gazed at the black velvet box, it was roughly five inches on each side and three inches deep which gave her some idea of the size of whatever was inside. Her fingers trembled slightly as they brushed the velvet nap in preparation to opening it and finding out whatever was inside it.
Only to be startled by a massive crash from the backyard, either one of the fiancées had decided to return using their usual method of entering the dojo grounds or, she glanced at the clock to confirm her suspicions.
"Oh dear, they've started early today," she said as she reluctantly placed the box in her bedside cabinet. Time enough for frivolous things after she'd finished her morning chores.
/ Nabiki \
"Hey old man watcha go and do that for?"
Nabiki winced at the first sounds of combat from the yard and after a quick glance at her alarm she groaned in regret at the loss of sleep.
"That's a stupid question boy, anyone would think you were a girl asking things like that." His father retorted from the safety of the rocks surrounding the koi pond. "Oh that's right you are a girl." The resounding clang let everyone in the house know that things had degenerated from martial arts to insult fu.
The ice queen of Furinkan slammed her aching head back down onto her pillow in frustration.
"Ow! What the hell was that?" she rubbed her ear as she pulled the pillow aside, reaching out with her free hand she picked up the small velvet box. Unlike her elder sister she knew that there was nothing frivolous about a mysterious jewelry box appearing under your pillow in the dead of night. The fine hair on the box tickled her fingers as they closed around it and lifted it in preparation to open it.
Snapping open the lid with little preamble she looked at the vellum inside, it was heavy and from what she could tell it was authentic. The thin hide of a deer processed to form a fine writing surface. The calligraphy was exquisite and so convoluted that it took a moment to discern the meaning within the kanji. It read….
'Please wear this small token of my esteem'
… other than that it was unsigned, she turned the card over to make sure there was nothing on the back, with a twist of her wrist the card sailed across the room and into her waste paper basket, she didn't know too many people who spoke like that. In fact the only ones she knew well enough to be receiving jewellery from were there Kuno's. That and the fact that people didn't hold her in esteem, they feared her, respected her maybe, but hold her in esteem? Not in this lifetime, and that's the way she liked it.
She whistled as she saw the Tiffany's brand name inside the lid knowing that if it were from there then who ever had given this was seriously loaded as nothing from Tiffany's came cheap. Pulling the cotton wadding aside she revised her initial reaction after her first look at the small pendant, it didn't seem to be anything truly special but she wouldn't know unless she examined it in better light. So far she had an estimation of sixty thousand to three hundred thousand yen, a nice piece but hardly Tiffany's.
She opened the curtains to let the first rays of light into her room, she wouldn't normally be this awake so early but the thought of money always did strange things to her. Placing the figurine close to the source of light she could see that it was a cupid pendant, and the more she looked the more detail was revealed to her.
The wings were exquisitely chased (1) and the closer she looked the more detailed the feathers appeared. It was then that she noticed the stones embedded in the front of the wings, with a catlike grin she contemplated if they were what they appeared to be; then she could tack on two more zeros to the final value of the piece. The metal seemed to be silver, which wasn't a terribly expensive metal by any stretch of the imagination, but then again the artistry in the piece raised it's value all by itself, she noticed small things now, such as the heart shaped red stone that formed the head of cupids arrow, or the fact that the eyes were tiny clear stones with perfectly aligned sapphires in their centres. Just thinking about the possible value of this was causing her blood pressure to rise, a rosy blush entered her cheeks as her fingers itched to pick the jewellery up and put it around her neck.
She restrained herself though as she had no intention of accepting something like this from a stranger. No one she knew including the Kuno's could afford to give this kind of gift away, not without there being a price tag attached and until she found out what it was she needed more information. The first thing she needed was to find out what the final value of the piece actually was, everything was speculation until then. The gold lettering in the lid of the box proudly proclaimed Tiffany's as the maker so that seemed like a good place to start. Whoever had made this was a master of the trade and surely they'd know who that person was.
Of course there was no way she could go dressed like a school girl, she'd be swindled seven ways to Sunday if she did. This required careful planning, first she headed for the bathroom to get herself clean and presentable, then when she returned she closed the door and dropped her yukata leaving her gazing into her mirror as naked as the day she was born, she smiled at her figure before opening the drawer and pulling out the professional makeup kit she'd brought. First things first she needed to appear older than she was, and that implied wrinkles (shudder) pulling out a vial of clear liquid she carefully traced crows feet around her eyes and mouth, as the liquid dried it pulled the skin tight in places while leaving it loose in others. With foundation and a heavier makeup she seemed to be in her late thirties trying to look like a much younger woman.
She grinned at her reflection before opening a different draw with a key she kept hidden. Pulling out her best lingerie collection she pulled on the matching brassiere and panties. Smoothing her hands down her legs she took a moment to pull the garter on and then the pure silk stockings which she attached her garter belt. Reaching into her closet she pulled out a bagged business suit she kept for instances where she needed to appear as a professional and the cream silk blouse that exposed a certain amount of her cleavage, an application of the clear liquid later and they seemed to belong to an older woman with a well kept body. The suit fitted like it was made for her, which was in fact the truth as it was tailored for her almost six months ago when she discovered the marketability of Ranma and had hoped to capitalize on it. It was made from the finest materials and by the best tailor in Tokyo and as such had cost a small fortune in her eyes but she figured it would be worth it in the long term. After all you had to speculate to accumulate where money was concerned and part of that was to take the chance on the price of appropriate business clothes.
/ Akane \
The youngest Tendo groaned as she rolled over on her mattress, 'Damn that idiot! Why can't they spar at a reasonable hour?' She opened her eyes reluctantly and gazed at the ceiling as she contemplated what she'd do today.
First up she needed to go for a good jog, the weekend had been spent pampering herself along with her sisters. She hadn't done any exercises at all, a fact that Ranma had reminded her of the first time he'd seen her last night. He'd found out the hard way that she didn't appreciate being called a thick thighed Gorilla. She grinned as she remembered the mallet strike to his head that had thrown him into the koi pond.
After her jog she'd head into the furo for her morning bath and maybe a little soak being as it was still so early. Then she'd have to drag Ranma to school, a place they actually had a chance of getting to on time this morning, well unless one of his many fiancées, rivals or Kuno decided to act up. Kuno got a whole category to himself mainly because none of the others truly fit into the brain-dead grouping.
The afternoon was much too far away to make any plans for it and have any hope that they would still be viable, after all this was Nerima and nothing stayed stable for very long.
Right, first up jogging, she rolled off of the mattress and walked over to her chest of drawers to get her shorts and t-shirt and donned them on the way back to her bed. Sitting down she grabbed one of her shoes and jammed her foot into it, grabbing the other she jammed her other foot into it and then yelled.
"Owww!" as she retracted her foot from the opening and brought it up to her eye to peer in and see what had stubbed her toe. Inside she could just make out the edge of something black and hard, reaching a finger in she stroked the surface and found it to have a velvety feel to it. Wriggling it a little loosened it so that when she tipped the sneaker up the small black box fell into the palm of her hand.
Akane looked at the inert black box in her hand as if waiting for it to do something, or at least explain itself. Stranger things had been known to happen in this part of the world, but to her disappointment the box remained inert and didn't do anything special. She reluctantly came to the conclusion that it was just what it looked like, a small jewellery case that she needed to flip the lid on to see what was inside. The vellum card was read and shoved to one side impatiently as she wanted to view what ever was inside the box.
What was revealed was a small cupid shaped pendant with a silver necklace attached. 'Nice,' she thought to herself as she looked at it, 'not too expensive, the perfect apology piece.' She smiled as she considered the only person who'd buy her something like this, who knew that Ranma had it in him to pick a piece of jewellery like this?
She resisted the urge she felt to place the pendant around her neck right that instant, she was still quite miffed at the pig-tailed martial artist and it'd take a lot longer for her to get over that. Decided on a course of action she smiled as she thought about putting it on that afternoon.
Jamming her foot into her sneaker she placed the case under her pillow and scampered from the room in a much lighter frame of mind than when she first woke.
/ Ranma \
Ranma was having a ball as he dodged all that his father could throw at him. It'd been a long time since the old man had landed a blow, something in the region of a month but that didn't stop the old geezer from trying, he'd even pulled out all his sneaky moves and failed. Ranma for the moment was coasting in his studies as he'd faced Saffron and walked away in one piece which was more than his opponent could say.
Ranma-chan spat out a mouthful of water as she stood up in the koi pond, alright maybe she should have been paying better attention to her surrounding but that was no reason for that hentai little freak to sneak up on her like that. It took a moment for her to even remember the strike and the few milliseconds that it took her to hit the pond, but when she did her eyes widened in shock.
That pain at the small of her back hadn't been a blow but a moxibustion point, to be precise it was the 'Ultimate weakness moxibustion'. Looking up she found the target of her ire standing on the roof near its crest staring at her.
"Wha'd ya go an do that for ya old freak?"
"I'm getting tired of the games around here Ranma, it's time for you to make a decision." Happosai stepped off the gutter and headed towards her.
"You're wastin' your time old man, I already know how to break this. Then I'm gonna find and pound ya into the ground." She growled as he stepped up to her.
"It's true you can get out of the moxibustion quite easily Ranma. But you're missing a point in my plan."
"Huh?" Ranma was fast but for a moment she could barely see the old man move as his hands blurred and she felt the strike to the middle of her chest. Thinking he'd groped her she covered her chest at least until she realized they hadn't been his target. A feeling of dread entered her slight body as she remembered the last time she'd felt that particular strike.
"That's right m'boy, 'Cats tongue pressure point'. Now you can't reverse the moxibustion point until you cure the 'Cats tongue', and the only way to cure that is to go to Khu Lon, or take the challenge I have for you."
Ranma blanched at the thought of going to the 'Old Ghoul' in his current state, Xian Pu would have him bundled up and on the way to China before he could defend himself, or Mu Tse would literally destroy him, the elder wouldn't be any better not after he'd defeated the Phoenix king.
"What are you up to you…." Ranma couldn't think of anything loathsome enough to call the old freak this time and left it hanging.
"As I said, I have a challenge for you."
"Alright I'll bite, what challenge?"
"Live as you are for a period of three months."
"Hah, is that all?"
"Yes that's it, for three months as a weak little girl. The only aid you can ask for is from the Tendo sisters."
"I don't need no ones aid old man, I can do it on my own."
"Is that so? Let me ask what happens when Tatewaki Kuno attacks you in the morning or his sister for that matter. Ryoga? Mu Tse? Are these names ringing any bells for you boy? If I were you I'd take the offer that I'm giving you, or I'll change the challenge to the way you say you want it."
"Fine, I suppose…" Ranma-chan slumped down onto one of the rocks by the koi pond and looked the old master of the 'Anything Goes' style in the eyes. "Just one question old man. Why?"
"That's a silly question boy. The answer of course is 'Why not?" Ranma-chan watched as the old freak bounded over the perimeter wall while laughing his head off
A/N So tell me what you think. Go on, you know you want to. And you know I want you to, as well.
1. Chase work is to decorate metal or glass by engraving or embossing detail into the surface.