Ranma woke, feeling odd. Something was very different today. He thought about it. There was no bucket of water or shouting tomboy fiancée. There was no hard kick sending him flying out of a second story window, futon and all.
Wait. Futon. There was no futon! He was sleeping in a bed! A brand new double bed with box springs, mattress, a pillow-topper, pillows, snowy-white lemony fresh cotton sheets and two warm blankets! It was HIS bed! He was in his own bed in his own room in his own home where no one had the right to tell him to get out.
Ranma snuggled back into the sybaritic luxury, sighing happily at the alien sensation of having gotten enough sleep. There had been no nocturnal visits from fiancées, no snoring farting gasbag of a panda stealing his blanket, no crazed enemies trying to murder him in his sleep- It was just so incredible. He felt like a trillion yen.
There was a knock at the door, and Nodoka stuck her head in. "Are you awake? Breakfast is ready, my dear."
"Thanks, Mom. I'll be right down!" Sitting up, he gave the extra pillow an affectionate little pat to bid the wonderful bed a fond farewell. Maybe he would get to sleep in it again! With that happy thought, he leapt up and started his day.
-
Pulling back before his foot accidentally brushed the wall, Ranma sighed in annoyance. Breakfast had been nothing short of wonderful, but there just wasn't quite enough room in his mother's backyard for his kata. When he really lost himself in the kata, fighting multiple imaginary opponents, he sometimes forgot about the real things around him and inadvertently destroyed them.
Frowning, he noticed the neighbor gaping at him over the wall. The sharp rippling cracks of his limbs breaking the sound barrier had probably woken the old woman up. Groping, he finally recalled her name. "Good morning, Mrs. Yoko."
"Er… Good morning, Ranma." The old woman smiled weakly and returned to her morning chores. Nodoka hadn't been kidding about her son. Well, what with those youma creatures that had been popping up lately it was probably a good thing for the neighborhood that the boy had finally come home.
Ranma stretched, and then concentrated hard. A blue aura blazed around him and he lifted a few feet off of the ground.
Gasping with the effort involved, Ranma touched down again and considered what he had learned. Saffron had been more powerful, but not all that much more powerful. He was still doing it wrong. Coming to a decision he looked through the back doors and noticed his mother, humming cheerfully as she scrubbed the kitchen floor.
Ranma stuck his head in the door. "Hey, Mom, I'm gonna go over to the park and practice there for a while."
Nodoka smiled up at him. She was on her knees, wearing an old sweat-suit and yellow rubber gloves, reveling in the housework now that there was a reason for it. She felt fulfilled in a way that had eluded her ever since her beloved son had been taken away.
"You are 'going to,' Ranma. Not 'gonna.' You need to improve your vocabulary. Slang contractions aren't civilized."
Ranma nodded. "Sorry, Mom. I meant to say that I'm going to go to the park." She had started that yesterday, extracting a promise from him to try and become more 'civilized.' Unfortunately, being 'civilized' seemed to be an endlessly expanding task. It was almost like a replacement for 'manly,' now that she had finally given up on that one.
Nodoka nodded happily, blowing an errant hair out from in front of her eyes. She did love her son so, even though he could never be quite as manly as she had hoped. "Be sure to be home on time for lunch!"
"Right, Mom. See ya!" Ranma bounded away, his leap so prodigious that it was almost indistinguishable from real flight. He would work on flying later. He wanted to work on the umisenken, as well as to try to figure out that bubble thing that the weird chick had thrown at him.
-
Nodoka laid out the tea tray, eyeing the clock. They had time to chat and then there would be lunch so that she could observe the candidate interacting with her son. Nodoka had no particular favorite among the girls but Kodachi had a decidedly unsavory reputation. On the other hand, such things were often the products of misunderstanding.
Precisely on time, the door chime was rung. Nodoka answered the door with a smile. "Welcome, Miss Kuno. Won't you come in?"
-
Ranma performed his kata with fluid precision and little awareness of his physical surroundings. Untold hours of practice insured that he would draw an annoying crowd if he wasn't careful, so this time he was cloaked in his latest version of the umisenken
The kata was a form of meditation that Ranma used, having been forbidden the traditional forms by Genma. Long ago in Burma an old Song shan master of Ranma's acquaintance had explained to him that meditation takes many forms and that the traditional form was only the easiest way to disassociate the mind from the body. To directly perceive the world, one needed to ignore one's physical eyes and open one's spirit. With only that advice to go on, Ranma had developed his own meditation technique, one based on training his body to the point that his mind was no longer necessary to operate it.
Ranma's body was in furious motion, but his mind was detached enough to feel the energies that the world bathed in. When the change came, his attention was immediately drawn. Stopping his kata, he used his physical eyes and saw the dark ovoid floating nearby in the air, moving uncertainly as if searching.
Extending his senses he felt the chi bound up in the thing, held in a tightly ordered pattern by something else. Something that felt very like the blue devil had felt. Ranma was excited. It was magic that he was feeling. He had never been able to feel it so clearly before. This must be powerful magic.
Experimentally, Ranma sent a tiny burst of ki at a small tree and watched the thing react, veering quickly toward the tree. It was obviously homing in on him, seeking out powerful ki. His umisenken had confused the thing though.
Walking over to the tree, Ranma watched with fascination as the ovoid touched and then merged with it. The pattern in the ovoid latched on to something that Ranma belatedly recognized as the tree's natural chi and began to warp it, overwriting it, using its stored chi to power the process.
Excited, Ranma noted the tree rippling and changing physically. He wondered if this might be a clue to how his Jusenkyo curse operated. He needed to find Mousse or P-Chan, coldcock him and change him back and forth for a while. Ranma was pretty sure that once he got the patterns down he might be able to use his ki to disrupt the curse so that it didn't work anymore. He might even be able to trigger the change without water!
The tree swelled, and then shrank slightly. A grotesquely female face bubbled out of the bark and the branches began to wave. As Ranma stared, spindly roots pulled out of the ground, looking hideously like spider legs as the tree stood up on them.
"Cool!" Ranma was entranced.
The tree roared, whipping its tentacle-branches furiously, searching for the origin of the sound.
A jogger had stopped to stare and she screamed in horror at the awful sight.
Ranma sighed. He had hoped to study the thing more, but it was plain that it had to be stopped. He was amazed when the tree-monster used what seemed almost like a version of the happo-go-en-satsu to drain ki from the jogger.
Delicately, Ranma sent a small pulse of hot ki slicing into the point where the magic from the ovoid had attached itself to the tree's chi matrix. The tree fell over, immediately shrinking and reverting to a tree again, the magic disrupted.
Ranma nodded thoughtfully. These youma creatures had glass jaws. They were pathetically vulnerable if you knew just where to hit them.
Walking over to the downed jogger, Ranma dropped his umisenken, picked her up and set off across the rooftops for a hospital that he'd seen nearby. He needed to move fast because he didn't want another fiancée after him. Rescuing girls was always a very tricky proposition.
-
They had been chatting for a while now and Nodoka had a good feel for the girl, but now it was time to get down to business.
"Thanks to his father's negligence my son is extremely crude in his manner, poorly educated, lacks even a basic understanding of how to live in a civilized society and hasn't the slightest concept of romantic love. Why ever would you want such a man?" Nodoka sipped her tea and watched carefully.
Kodachi paused to marshal her thoughts. She sensed that Nodoka could end her hopes. It was necessary to be completely honest with the woman while subtly spiking the arguments of the girls that would come here after her. It was good that she had come first.
Confidently, Kodachi began. "Saotome-san, much of what you say is true. Ranma is something of a barbarian and I cannot see him functioning in the role of a traditional Japanese salaryman. His inferiors would resent and despise him if he tried to assume their role. However, unlike my competitors, I do not require a provider of that sort. I require nothing less than a hero and Ranma is plainly the equal of any hero in our history."
Kodachi leaned forward, her eyes boring into Nodoka's. "I would never try and turn my hero into restaurant help, or into a daycare provider, or into some second class imitation of a salaryman. He is far above such things. To take care of such a man is nothing less than a sacred trust to the nation. I will make a place for him and his art to thrive and I will take the most diligent care of him. He deserves nothing less."
Nodoka was impressed but Kodachi hadn't answered fully. "Ranma is indeed a heroic sort, but why do you need such a man? Wouldn't you prefer a man of your own background and class? One who can stand beside you during the most trying social situations? I shudder to imagine Ranma's behavior at a formal function. The buffet alone would be an unimaginable disaster."
Kodachi blinked, considering. "It is true that I am a noblewoman, Saotome-san, and it is also true that such a position ordinarily brings many social obligations. I freely acknowledge the burden imposed by Ranma's lack of proper socialization. However, especially after our 'date' yesterday, I feel that Ranma could learn to deal with such matters. He is really quite charming and he attracts people without trying. As I told you, he managed to make a mentor of Ishikawa-sensei, an achievement in its own right. Ranma is the typical diamond in the rough, requiring only polish and the proper setting to shine forth."
"Rather more than a little, I fear. Ranma's typical mode of speech is atrocious. It will take a tremendous effort to educate him." Nodoka frowned. Kodachi was selling herself well, but hadn't yet given any real justification for her pursuit of Ranma. "Why do you pursue Ranma? He is handsome enough, but there are many handsome and manly men who do not require such effort."
Kodachi had no real answer. She was after Ranma because no other man had ever roused the least feeling of interest within her, let alone the volcanic feelings that the sight of Ranma's clear blue eyes brought on. Many young men had pursued her for her vast wealth, but none of those poltroons had ever had a chance. Kodachi simply had to have Ranma Saotome. She began to speak, not quite sure where she was going.
"Clan Kuno has survived over the centuries by marrying into power, Saotome-san. That strategy has been very successful for the Kuno. Few of the old clans that remain in the modern age have the money or influence to match us. None of the clans that can do so are healthy. Speaking candidly neither is the Kuno clan entirely healthy. Marrying into another unstable, financially powerful clan would bring only ruin to both houses and perhaps even to the nation itself."
Growing more confident, Kodachi sipped tea and let her words sink in. "That leaves only one sort of power worthwhile enough to be sought, Saotome-san. Ranma's sort of power. The sort of inborn power and discipline that could save the Kuno from further decline."
Kodachi was surprised at herself. The argument was coming straight from her heart, with impeccable logic. It hadn't been considered beforehand at all. "I want to woo and win Ranma, Saotome-san, and logic has nothing at all to do with it. However, genetically and culturally he is just the sort of man that I am predisposed to pursue. Pursue him I will."
Nodoka smiled, hearing the simple truth. "I will not oppose your suite, Miss Kuno, but be aware that all such decisions must be his own."
"Of course." Kodachi smiled back. That didn't mean that the competition couldn't be obliterated, in all fairness of course.
"Does his curse bother you?" Nodoka was curious. It would certainly bother her. Perhaps these girls flocking after her son were a bit twisted.
"Curse?" Kodachi frowned. "What curse?"
-
Shampoo scowled at Nabiki when she read the address. She already knew where it was and she should have checked it herself. Nabiki's 'help' had cost her a day's tips and Shampoo made a lot in tips. "So Husband now living with mother? Good! Violent Pervert Girl finally drive away!"
Nabiki shrugged. "That remains to be seen." She had seen Shampoo, Kodachi and Ukyo assault Ranma too many times to worry on that account. Akane wasn't any more violent than the competition. Ukyo's spatula might well have a weak spot in the shape of Ranma's' face from having it imprinted in the steel so many times. Nabiki was also pretty certain that to Ranma, Akane's mallet was less frighteningly violent than Shampoo's deadly bicycle.
"At least Pervert Girl no longer so close." Shampoo smiled. Now all that she had to do was take care of Spatula Girl. Crazy Flower Girl was not a threat because Husband was deathly afraid of her, but there was no getting around the fact that her Airen liked the chef. Spatula Girl had proven to be quite the hard target and their duel had been inconclusive, but her time would come soon. A quick memory erase and Spatula Girl wouldn't care anymore. With the rest of the obstacles out of the picture, Husband would soon admit his attraction and come back to China with her to make a huge family of powerful Amazon martial artists.
"Shampoo? Earth to Shampoo." Nabiki waved a languid palm over Shampoo's glazed eyes. It was amazing. Ukyo had done exactly the same thing. "Ranma asked me to tell you that his mother wants to see you. You need to call her and make an appointment."
Shampoo's eyes snapped into focus and sharpened with interest. "Shampoo gladly see mother-in-law again, but why is needing appointment?"
"Do you want my opinion?" Nabiki considered and then decided not to charge the barbarian girl for speculation. She dealt only in hard information. "Very well, I would have to say that it has something to do with her home being destroyed the last time that all of you fiancées were around at once. She wants to talk with Ranma's fiancées one at a time and make sure that you all know the ground rules about pursuing her son and fighting in her home."
Shampoo swallowed. She had been in on the fight that had wrecked the Saotome home and Cologne had put her through a special training regime that had almost killed her for it. Shampoo was still being docked her entire wage for the damages that Cologne had paid to try and repair the breach. It was a good thing that the salarymen that she delivered to always tipped so well. "Shampoo is no fiancée. Is Ranma wife. Have telephone number? Shampoo will pay only 500 yen."
"Done." Nabiki loved dealing with worried customers. Ranma had already paid her to give Shampoo the number, so it was double profit.
-
"Jupiter Thunder Crash!"
Ranma sidestepped the lightning bolt and made another slight change to his umisenken. They had caught him coming out of the hospital and they were really pissed. Still, it was something of a stroke of luck that they hadn't tracked him home. The girls had helpfully informed him that they were homing in on the curse magic to track him. He was gradually figuring out how to hide it, though. He just hoped that he didn't have to use the 'Hentai Sensei Satsu' on them again to break contact.
The one in aqua blue, wearing the goggles that could see through his umisenken cried out, "Be careful! Careful! He's fading from the scope! Mercury Power Blast!"
It was nice of her to tell him these things. If she hadn't, Ranma would have had to borrow the goggles to perfect the move. He sidestepped again and vowed to stop calling out his attacks. It gave too much warning. "Look ya crazy chicks, just quit it already!"
Usagi grimaced. Crazy chicks? "The street is for decent honest people to use to return to their homes and families, not for Dark Generals who release vicious hentai trolls! In the name of the Moon, we will punish you! Moon Tiara Action!"
Ranma sidestepped the tiara, noting with interest that it tried to get him again on the way back. "Heh. That was lame. Why don't you clumsy chicks just go home and bake some cookies or something? Oh, sorry, I can see it goes straight to your butts."
"Ghaaa! Venus Love Chain Encircle!"
Ranma hopped over the chain, grabbed it and wrapped her in it.
Venus screamed with rage.
Ranma winced. "Aw, crap! That love chain don't make chicks fall in love, does it? Well I ain't' marryin' any of you hentai chicks, so you can all just forget about it right now!"
"Hentai chicks!" Venus choked in horror. Sure, their skirts were short, but really… "I don't want to marry a monster like you!"
Ranma suddenly realized that she couldn't see him anyway. "You don't? Wow! Awesome!"
"Bastard!" Venus almost fainted from sheer hatred.
"He's not really a Dark General, Moon. Mars Flame Sniper!" Mars didn't care what he was. She would never forgive the theft of her undergarments while wearing a skirt that short.
Moon had been trying to locate a target, but the voice was moving too fast. "Then no one will marry him anyway! He's a… a trollmaster! He's as evil as his troll and that's all that counts!" Usagi threw the tiara again, forgetting for once to call out her attack.
"I wish." Ranma jumped over the fireball and caught the tiara, satisfied that the hole in his umisenken technique had finally been filled. "Look, I toll ya to let me alone. I'm not in nobodies army and I don't wanna fight a bunch of clumsy hentai panty-flasher chicks like you, all right? It just ain't dignified." He charged the tiara with ki and flipped it at an iron lamp post, slicing the post neatly in half before the tiara wobbled to a gentle landing on Moon Chick's head.
The post hit the ground with a clang.
"Hentai panty-flasher chicks!" Mars glared, furious at the horribly condescending overweening arrogance dripping from the disembodied voice. "Mars Fire Ignite!"
Ranma, taken by surprise, held out a palm and deflected the fireball with a modified ki-cutter. He was really starting to get a handle on these magical attacks. "Well, I guess ya can't track me at all now, so I'm gonna- going to use the sacred holy blessed street ta go home and eat some lunch. Bye!"
"Wait! Who are you!" Moon was furious, but daunted. He could have killed her with her own tiara if he had wanted. He avoided or shrugged off their best attacks, shrugged them all off just as easily as his disgusting troll had.
Ranma grinned. "Hee-hee. I am the evil pig-demon Ryoga Hibiki! Fear me!" He took three quick steps to the right and then turned for home, sniggering.
-
"I think that he's gone. My audio sensors aren't picking up his breathing anymore." Mercury stamped in frustration. Her VR goggles were useless!
"What's the matter, Usagi?" Venus frowned. Usagi was holding her tiara, an extremely odd expression on her face.
"His… his aura is all over my tiara. I can… feel him. He's so confident! We're nothing at all to him. He absolutely knows that we can't beat him. No one can." Moon shivered. Such confidence was daunting indeed.
"Let me see that." Mars grabbed the tiara and almost dropped it, exclaiming, "Ki! That's ki!" She used tiny amounts of it in the temple, but had never dreamed of anything like this. "There's no way that the dark kingdom can be involved. They eat spirit energy to fuel their magic. He must be a martial artist of some kind. They're the only ones that I know of besides priests and mikos that ever try to use their ki. No priest could possibly be that arrogant. I wonder if we can track him down that way?"
Jupiter shook her fist at the heavens. "Ryoga Hibiki, you will pay!"
Mars swallowed, looking gingerly at the tiara in her hand. "I don't know if we can take this Hibiki down, Jupiter. I just don't know. But we'll sure try."
Hiking through the mountains on the road to Mandalay, Ryoga felt a sudden chill.
-
Ranma had a curse. Ranma was also Ranko Tendo, the insolent, arrogant redhead that had so shockingly defeated her in martial arts gymnastics, and the girl that her idiotic brother was pursuing. Kodachi was perched high up in the frame of a billboard mounted on the roof of a small bank, trying to come to terms with it all.
In shock, Kodachi had excused herself from lunch to go think, but what to do now? She couldn't disbelieve. It all made so much sense now that she could plug the new datum into her memories. Many mysterious coincidences became less mysterious in their meaning, if not less so in fact.
Magic existed, of that she was sure. In fact, below her on the street the Sailor Senshi were fighting a wraith of some sort and losing handily, in spite of what she was sure were magically boosted attacks. Kodachi was not impressed with their tactical sense. She would have saturated the area with attacks, boxed the creature in and then used the crossfire to destroy everything that existed within the box. The Senshi seemed to have little in the way of tactical ability, fighting more like a panicky mob than a disciplined force.
"Ranma!" Kodachi stood and jumped down to the roof of the bank when she heard the laughing wraith jestingly name itself Ryoga Hibiki. Ranma's voice was quite unforgettable.
Those vile little harlots were trying to kill her darling Ranma! Kodachi was not unaware of the many, many women that had begun their pursuit of Ranma in that fashion. Glaring, she marked them. She would follow them and find out just who they were. Then she would catch them one at a time and 'persuade' them to give up on their little vendetta, in all fairness of course.
Kodachi herself would never give up. It was simply not in her nature. Every hero had to have a tragic flaw and if this magical flaw enabled Ranma to learn the secret workings of a woman's body like no other man in history then Kodachi could not complain.
Besides, eleven years of female-only prep schools had left their mark. Kodachi could be somewhat eclectic in her tastes.
-
Ranma entered his home, whistling happily. He loved Minato-ku. So far it had been a pretty good morning, with lots of good training. He kicked off his shoes, flipping them neatly into their place and donned his household geta without ever touching the floor with his bare feet. "I'm home!"
Nodoka stepped out of the kitchen, smiling a welcome. "Lunch is ready, Ranma. You should go and wash up."
"Sure thing, Mom." Ranma sniffed appreciatively. "Smells great!"
Nodoka smiled. "Why, thank you, son. I have prepared guyoza, oyakodon domburi and fruit juice. For desert we have sticky buns and apple riceballs."
"Alright! Thanks, Mom." Ranma sighed happily. Kasumi was good, but not the best. His mom always prepared great food and enough of it to actually satisfy him.
-
There was little conversation at first. Ranma tried to maintain some decorum, but he had used a lot of energy earlier and it had to be replaced.
As he finished his tenth riceball and started on the sticky buns, Ranma finally noticed his mother watching him over the rim of her teacup. "Ain't- Um, aren't you gonna- going to eat anything, Mom?"
"Please, do not concern yourself, Ranma. I had tea and cookies for brunch with Miss Kuno this morning, so you may as well finish the meal." Nodoka smiled cheerfully, pleased that he was keeping his promises. Ranma wasn't always a man, but he was always a man of his word and that counted for quite a lot in her eyes.
Ranma's eyes widened and he looked around nervously. "Kodachi was here?"
"We had a nice long chat." Nodoka enjoyed the play of expression over his face. She had to teach him a little sophistication or people would surely take advantage. "I quite approve of Miss Kuno. She would make a fine wife for you. An acceptable daughter in law in every way."
Ranma inhaled part of a pastry and spend a moment coughing it up. "You do? Kodachi? But… she's crazy, Mom!"
"You do not have to marry her my son, but I found her quite suitable. She has a strong will, is very intelligent and most of all she understands the obligations that a woman would take up to become the wife of a man such as you." Nodoka eyed him thoughtfully. "You could do far worse."
-
"Where the hell am I now!" Ryoga stood in trackless jungle, peering angrily at a city map of Chattanooga. It was of course a useless lying trick, just like all of the other maps that Ryoga had ever tried to use.
Gritting his teeth, trying to contain his rage, Ryoga threw the map away. Picking a direction at random, he set out. He would come to a road soon and follow it to the Tendo dojo as he always did. Then Ranma would pay. Well, probably not, but the fight would be great.
-
A boy ran into the village, crying, "He's coming! He's coming! The terrible fang-demon is coming again!"
The village hetman leapt to his feet, galvanized by the news. The fang-demon was very, very useful if you could lead it. "Everybody, take your places! Girls, remember the word!"
The people ran into hiding, all except for a few young women. The consensus was that the fang-demon might not be quite as angry with them. Besides, there were a lot of excess women in the village.
-
"Bakusai Tenketsu!" The rock exploded, exposing an overgrown field with a narrow trail to one side. "Aha! At last a road!" Ryoga stepped over the rubble onto the trail, happily. He hated being lost in jungles. The cursed ruins, cultists, angry idols, dinosaurs and crazy headhunters made jungle travel far too stressful.
"Ranma Ranma Ranma!"
"Heh?" Ryoga looked up and saw a pretty young girl waving a ribbon at him from across the field.
She smiled encouragingly at the fang-demon and shouted, "Ranma Ranma Ranma!"
"Ranma? Where's Ranma! I'll get you, Ranma!" Ryoga clenched his fists and strode determinedly across the field after the girl. Ranma would pay for his evil ways! That cad, chasing even these poor rural village girls-
BOOM!
Ryoga landed flat on his back. He sat up and regarded his toes, slightly reddened and clad now in only a few smoking wisps of shoe. "Mines. I'm in another minefield." That meant that he was probably in Cambodia again. It all fit. All he had to do was head east to find Japan.
"Ranma, I'll get you for this!" Ryoga got up and took a step.
BOOM!
The villagers watched awestruck as the fang demon sat up, smoking, but unhurt once again. They had seen him step on eighty five of the things in a row just a few months ago, but they still stared with popping eyes at the impossible thing that was blundering through their lives.
Ryoga scowled at the people watching him. The last time they had at least clapped every time that he detonated a mine. "Screw this."
Ryoga had thought it over in the months since this had last happened to him. He had an idea. He snarled and jammed his finger into the ground. "Bakusai Tenketsu Revised! Travelling Super Bakusai Tenketsu! Mine sweeper!"
The villagers ran screaming as the earth began to shake. Every landmine and every privy within a ten-mile radius blew almost simultaneously.