Aura Ranma
Chapter 1: Consequences of waking up.
Upon waking the first thing the formerly comatose boy saw was the blurry face of the prince of the Musk Dynasty, Herb. It took him a minute for his vision to clear enough to recognize him though.
"Why are you here?" Ranma croaked, and took a drink from the straw in the water the other man held to his mouth.
"My father was understandably upset at my actions when I was last in Japan, and after disciplining me, and instructing me on the proper manners for royalty, sent me back with both an apology and an offer."
"Offer?"
"Yes, my father asked me to offer my sister as a fiancee to you." Came Herb's reply, he was shocked to see Ranma's face harden in anger.
"You really hate me don't you?" the bed bound boy asked tightly as the doctor came in suspending the conversation.
An hour later a tired Ranma was sleeping normally, with his usual bad dreams causing him problems.
Herb looked on with a concerned look on his face, that anger wasn't normal. He walked out of the hospital to find Nabiki, the only one he knew that could give him an overview on the pigtailed boy's life.
Well the only one greedy enough to tell him... for a price.
After hearing the obviously biased story, obvious because the young woman obviously forgot she was talking to one that was involved in one of the incidents.
After all, he knew Akane wasn't the one to beat him.
He knew that Saffron fell to Ranma, not Akane.
He found it weird that so many people kept believing the information broker.
He felt he had an obligation to report that to Ranma, whom was apocalyptic in impotent fury.
His knew then that he wouldn't marry a Tendo. If not for Akane's treatment of him before, but the fact that she and her family had the dishonor to take his own achievements as the youngest daughters own.
The fact that those whom knew better openly supported those versions also complicated matters.
Ranma was pissed by the wholesale betrayal, but needing physical therapy for the year of inactivity made it so he couldn't do more than lay there and swear.
Herb decided that at present the engagement offer would be suspended.
It would surprise everybody how quickly he recovered his strength.
A month to recover after year of inactivity.
Physically at least.
Emotionally? The therapy was estimated to take years, if not decades. Not just due to the perfectly reasonable fear of games such as The World, but also due to the apparent betrayal of everyone he knew, and past traumas.
Not that everybody believed or spread the altered stories, in fact less than ten percent of Nerima did.
But he didn't know that.
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It's time, the therapist thought. He decided to try having Ranma log into The World R:2. This was to try and break him of his lesser fear.
The fear he would be put into a coma again for playing. It has been two months since he started working with the fluid gendered young man, and he made wonderful progress, and the young man's odd friend seemed to be helping too.
So, after setting up the equipment, and the game, he waited while writing a report for his own records.
Subject: Ranma Saotome.
Age 22.
Gender: depends on the temperature of the last water that hit him. Will refer to him as male.
Subject has Issues.
Unprofessional statement? Yes, but accurate.
Most, but not all, of the issues are because of his father.
First: a lack of understanding affection. This is due to a lack of such growing up, from a father whom believes that 'soft' emotions makes weakness to, later in life, Fiancees that thought of what they wanted, and not what he wanted... or needed. Trying to help, but with well over a decade and a half of no appreciable affection it's slow going.
That brings up the second point: conflicting obligations of honor, which I am attempting to point out that there is no honor in any of the engagements.
It's going slow.
Three: his mother. There is no real emotional attachment. She holds a death contract over his head for any slight infraction. (Witnessed personally, when she confronted him outside my office door, saying that therapy wasn't "Manly".)
Four: a slight fear of The World. Progress made, and I plan on having him try R:2.
Five: Neko-ken. I have consulted many of my peers. Treatment postponed.
Six: other training traumas. Too many to list.
Seven: lack of social skills. He has no clue on how to interact with people without fighting, or insulting them. The second reason why I'm going to try and have him play R:2 or some similar game.
Eight: the anger over the lies being told of him, and the credit for his achievements being stolen. Reasonable and hard to combat.
Nine: his curse, he finds it frightening that he no longer feels as if he was in a skin several sizes too small, and the wrong shape when he is a girl. The form had always felt fundamentally wrong to him, but no longer. He also noticed a few other issues with it. It had gotten slightly shorter and less developed for some reason. I have seen pictures to confirm this. Also the young man's clothes automatically shift when he turns is a new phenomenon, unlike before where the clothes stayed the same, and he isn't overly bothered by it.
The problem is he knows he should be. He knows that he should be bothered to be wearing such an obviously feminine dress. He knows that he should be bothered by the new underwear, that before he always refused to wear. He knows that he should be bothered by the changes in the body, changes that affected his martial arts skills, just the body size, and shape difference made a difference, also the body seemed to actually fight him slightly when he practices, not a lot, but enough to be noticeable. He KNOWS that he should be disturbed by the fact that some of his mannerisms and method of speaking in female form trend towards female.
Yet he isn't disturbed by any of that, and that's what disturbs him.
These are just some of the issues I have noticed. I am under a legal, and moral obligation to report the child abuse, and the slight problem of doctor patient confidentiality is gone when he signed a waiver to allow me to share some details with the police. I'm told some investigations are underway.
Conclusion: if he doesn't get help, he's liable to snap, and it won't be pretty.
Putting down the report he was working on he rechecked the setup, and after a thought, he added a second headset and controller, so that he could join in the session. Few PKs that target newbies would bother one that had a mid level veteran along.
After the initial greetings and nervousness, Ranma accepted the headset and controller.
He took a deep breath and selected 'Create New Character'.
"What the Hell!" he exclaimed as the process completed in under a quarter of a second, without any input. And then he was in the game.
He was wearing a red Gothic dress with an infinity symbol at her neck, and silver hair, and looked twelve. It was the same outfit that Ranma's girl form now wears in reality.
The character name was...
Aura.
The sight of her name, when his curser highlighted her, made a blue haired man with glasses and a large locked cylinder on his arm trip and faceplant in shock.
A little red '1' appeared above him.
Before he could speak, the girl, and a guy logged out.
Ranma wouldn't get to play that session.
"Ow..." said the prone blue haired man after the two logged out.
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End chapter.
EN: had page 1 nearly complete for about a year.
EN2: short but it feels like a good cut off point.