Ranma 1/2 and Inu-Yasha crossover fanfiction (under Ranma1/2)
"Enter the Prayer Beads"
summary: When Akane and Ranma end up in possession of a pair of prayer beads (exactly like the ones around Inuyasha's neck, in case you haven't caught on yet) and they end up on Ranma, what hilarity and chaos will ensure then? RanxInu crossover. RanxAka, InuxKag pairings.
disclaimer: I do not own any of Rumiko Takahashi's works. She's too good at what she does.
before you read: I've separated the story into sections by using dashes with letters or numbers or words (to make understanding the story easier for my precious readers. personally, I hate it when I can't figure out exactly who is saying what or when I don't figure out that the character perspective has changed until halfway through). the numbers stand for a chapter change, the letters stand for perspective change (character POV change) (ex. A for Akane, R for Ranma, Ry for Ryoga, M for Mousse), and the words stand for scene or a drastic time change (ex. from one day to the next, from morning to afternoon. specific time or time jumps will be numbers too)
to my readers: I apoligize SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much for getting this out so late.
-4-
CHAPTER FOUR: The Working of the Prayer Beads, part 3
Ranma was up in his room, his hand unconsciously fingering the string of beads around his neck. It was weird. He didn't remember tripping downstairs. So how had his balance tipped and he landed on his face?
His mind replaying the memory, Ranma realized that a flash had gone off in his eyes before the fall. And he thought back further and realized that it had happened when he had fallen that morning too.
It was odd, because he never tripped like that. He wasn't naturally clumsy. He wouldn't be a good martial artist if he was. But where had the flash come from? Or was he just imagining things?
Deciding that it was best not to wear out his brain with an abnormal amount of thought, he got up and stretched. Maybe a workout in the dojo would help clear his head instead. Besides, it was a teacher's day- a day off from school. He had nothing important to do.
-1.5 hrs later-
He returned from his bath to find Cologne, Shampoo, and Mousse downstairs, along with Ukyo, Mr. Tendo, his pop, Nabiki, Kasumi, and Akane.
"Hey, what's goin' on?" he asked, hoping that no one was going to get into an argument about anything, like about him marrying someone or somethin'.
"Oh, hello Ranma. We've been waiting for you." Kasumi said, her regular welcoming smile aimed towards him.
"Okay. Why?"
"Ah! Arien, great-grandmother have bad news." Shampoo said, boucing over to him in one leap, her hands clasped in front of her.
"It's about the necklace, Son-in-law." Cologne explained, and Ranma had to stop the urge of grasping said necklace with his hand in an attempt to hide it as she stared at it.
"I happened to find a reference on it after I came over yesterday, since I found it odd that you were wearing jewelry in your current form. I see that you're still wearing it now."
Ranma almost grimaced, thinking about how others saw him- a guy wearing a necklace. That was girl's stuff. Not to say he hadn't done odder girly things, but still...
"Is there a reason that you have the necklace, son?" Mr. Tendo asked. Ranma blinked at his question, surprised that the man hadn't noticed that he had been wearing to for over 24 hours already. Or remember that he had seen Akane "give" it to him earlier on. And the guy had made a big scene about it and all, too...
"It was mine, dad." Akane said. "I-"
"Did you hear that, Saotome? Oh happy day! Our schools will be joined!" Tendo interrupted, shouting to Genma happily. The two men clasped hands joyously and did a dance together, while Ranma had an odd sense of deja vu.
"Indeed, Tendo! Akane gave Ranma a gift! I admit, it is a bit girly, but a gift is a gift all the same!"
They swung around once, before Akane intervened- protesting loudly.
"Hey! I didn't give it to him! It wasn't a gift!"
The two fathers stopped dancing immediately, hands still clasped together.
"Then why does he have it?" Mr. Tendo asked questioningly.
"Ranma! You didn't steal it from Akane, did you?" Genma added, looking at him with a suspicious look that Ranma didn't think he pulled off too well. Nevertheless, it irritated him.
"I ain't you, Pop! I didn't steal nothin'!"
The two men stopped their posing.
"Well, then, how did you get it, Ranma?" his pop asked, adjusting his glasses in another attempt to look like something he wasn't- smart and observative. However, it did make Ranma think back to how he had exactly obtained the piece of jewelry.
"It sort of... fell on me." he said, a shrug in his voice, unsure how else to describe it. There were a few doubtful looks, but not so much. After all, this was Nerima, where chaos reigned free. And it was him they were talking about- the chaos conductor.
"Okay. Now that that's settled." Cologne said, tapping her staff on the floor for attention. "I think you'll all be very interested to learn about what I found."
There was silence as everyone stared at her.
Cologne sighed.
"I'll take that as a yes."
"Oh, yes please, elder Cologne." Kasumi said, realizing that the old woman expected a verbal confirmation. "We would like to know about it."
Cologne nodded her head, the lowered it, thinking about how best to speak before finally answering.
"Well, if I'm right, the necklace is a spell of some kind, not a curse, which is a relief of sorts. Although I'm sure that anyone wearing it will consider it one." she glanced at Ranma as she said this. He repressed the urge to shift in his place.
"The spell is triggered by a command- a single word. And it forces the wearer to subjugate to the one who speaks the command. Sort of like the mushrooms that Shampoo used on you once, Son-in-law." she cackled at her own memory of it, which Ranma didn't find funny at all. He was careful to avoid looking at Akane, knowing that she was remembering that time too. Both of them were probably blushing. He knew he was.
"When I ran into young Ukyo in the marketplace, she mentioned seeing it and told me that she couldn't remove it."
Ukyo nodded her confirmation at this
"The necklace cannot be taken off of you. My only source of such a necklace was only a mention of it. It is not Chinese in origin, and does not fall under my, nor Shampoo, nor Mousse's specialties or abilities." she shook her head.
"In all my years, I have never heard of nor seen such a necklace before. It must be either extremely rare, secret, or so old that no one thought to write it down. If it is old, it must have been in a remote region for no information to ever appear on it. The only mention I got about it was a written document from a person who saw this strange phenomena on a travel to Japan at least a thousand of years ago. He described it in his journal, which I only happen to even have because it was the journal of a spiritualist who had explored the world for supernatural occurrences. I can show it to you later if you'd like."
She tapped her cane on the floor once, staring that the floor in thought.
"To break the spell, which I assume you would want gone, well, unless we can find more information, we cannot do anything concrete. We can try a few methods to remove it, but we do not even know the most basic thing about it- the command that the necklace responds to."
"So wait." Nabiki said, bringing Cologne's attention to her, for which Ranma was glad. For some reason, what Cologne was suggesting didn't sit well with him. But denying that he would want the spell removed would be out of character for him to say, and everyone would wonder why.
"Are you saying that this necklace can control Ranma?"
"It seems likely." Cologne said, and everyone could practically see the wheels going inside of Nabiki's head at the news. Even Cologne seemed to be a bit uncomfortable as they thought about what Nabiki was possibly thinking.
Ranma shuddered and turned his thoughts away before they went down that dark path. According to Cologne, they needed a specific word to activate it. As long as Nabiki didn't know it, he should be fine. Unless...
"Hey, old bag. You don't happen to know the command, do you?"
Cologne chuckled, her voice amused.
"If I did, do you think that I'd be here telling you this? No, I have no idea what the trigger word is, Son-in-law. Be thankful for that."
Then her face once again grew serious.
"Now, let's get back to the matter at hand."
-R-
He sat up on the Tendo's roof, hands behind his back and staring off into the sky. It had been bound to happen again. Actually, if he thought back to the last spell or curse put on him (either accidentally or on purpose), he was long overdue. The only problem was... no one knew how to activate it. Well, really, that was a good thing. The last thing he wanted was to be someone's slave. But that also meant that Cologne didn't know how to get rid of it. And that wasn't good... right?
-next day-
Surprisingly, the next school day had been, for the most part, uneventful. Ranma and Akane hadn't really spoken since yesterday, though, and Ukyo kept stealing glances at Ranma. And even more surprising, Ranma found himself more bothered with the former rather than the latter.
They had walked over half of the way home before they actually spoke.
At a loss of what else to say, and definitely not wanting to mention the necklace, Ranma said the first thing that popped into his mind in an effort to get her talking.
"So... You're not going to take that bet about Ryoga with Nabiki?"
"Hah! I wouldn't if she decided to beg-"
Ranma felt his balance tip as something seemed to pull him down, and a flash go off before his eyes, very faintly. He fell off the fence with a crash, and face first right into the pavement.
"-me! It's just so... so... mean... Hey, Ranma?" she turned to see why he wasn't answering, only to see him face first on the ground.
"Ranma! Are you okay?" Akane ran over to his side, concerned.
"I'm fine." he mumbled around the concrete. What was that? Was that Cologne had been talking about? But it couldn't be. The necklace was suppose to control the wearer, right? Not make him eat dirt (or gravel, as the case would be).
He tried to move and his limbs refused to work. He struggled for a bit until, suddenly, he sprung up like nothing was wrong. Huh. That was weird.
"Are you okay?" Akane asked again.
"Yeah. I'm fine." he sung his arms around experimentally.
But Ranma felt something nigging at the back of his mind, trying to him something important. If only he knew what it was.
-A-
Akane put her head to her knees in thought, her eyes drifting closed. The whole two day's events played over in her head. Especially what Cologne had said. A trigger word for the necklace? Now that she thought about it, Ranma had seemed unusually clumsy lately. He had even fallen while sitting down. Remembering it made Akane smile. She could bet that that had never happened to him before.
But Ranma falling like that couldn't have been coincidence. It meant that the necklace had been active and she had said the trigger word, didn't it? The thought made her smile fade. Because, in all seriousness, he would of never fallen like that normally. So she must've activated the necklace's effect. But what had she said? And... if she was right, then the necklace didn't work like Cologne said it did, did it? Because she hadn't commanded him to fall.
Akane raked her brain for the exact words, but couldn't remember them. She recalled talking to Nabiki about Ryoga... and Ranma making a bet... and calling Ranma a baka...
'Baka'? Could that of been it? But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that it wasn't the word. Ranma had fallen other times, when she hadn't been mad at him.
She went back to thinking, trying to find a common word in all of her dialogues with her forced fiancé. She had always been talking to him about... about a bet.
Suddenly, her head shot up. 'Bet'. That was it- it had to be. The trigger word was 'bet'!
Determined, Akane got up, prepared to find Ranma and try out her theory.
-
She found him downstairs, eating a bag of potato chips.
"Hey... Ranma?"
He turned around to face her, a chip hanging from his mouth.
"Hm? Yeah, Akane?"
"Um... About that trigger word for the necklace?"
Ranma stood up, having eaten the chip, so that he didn't have to look up at her and strain his neck.
"Yeah, what about it? You know something' about it?"
"Maybe... I..." she sighed, before looking up at him, determined, deciding that she'd rather try it and be wrong then tell him first and be embarrassed for being wrong.
"Bet."
Nothing happened. Akane tried again.
"Bet."
-R-
Ranma knew that he was looking at her weird. But really, you couldn't blame him. First Akane came in, talking about the trigger word for the necklace, and now she was saying something about a bet?
"Akane, are you feeling okay?" he asked.
"I'm feeling fine. Bet."
-A-
She frowned. It wasn't working.
"What, are you trying to tell me you're gonna take the bet about Ryoga after all, or somethin'?"
She let out an angry huff and turned away.
"Hah! I wouldn't do that if you decided to beg-"
(crash!)
"-me to do it! I can't believe that you'd think I'd do that to poor Ryoga! Ranma, I- Ranma?"
She turned to find Ranma face first on the ground.
"Ranma! What happened?"
His answer was muffled by the floor. But she would bet that their thoughts were following the same wavelength. One of the words that she had said had been the trigger word for his necklace- had to have been. And it wasn't 'bet'.
Also, the necklace definitely didn't do what Cologne thought it did. And, from the look on Ranma's face, he had realized it too.
Both of them let out silent sighs of relief and worry. In many ways, this could be worse. Because now, that meant that Cologne's source was wrong, and that they had no reference to the necklace at all.
-S-
Shampoo had been about to come into the room and hug Ranma, asking him for a date that she was sure would be wonderful, when the Kitchen-Destroyer had come in first. Shampoo had been about to go in anyway- what did she care what Kitchen-Destroyer thought about her?, when what the girl was saying caught her attention.
"Um... About that trigger word for the necklace?" Kitchen-Destroyer was saying.
Aha! So pervert-girl knew the word! How sneaky!
"Akane, are you feeling okay?" her Arien asked. She sighed to herself, watching him. Oh, he was so handsome! And soon he would be hers.
"I'm feeling fine. Bet."
It figures. They were always fighting. If he would just marry Shampoo like he was supposed to, she would make sure that they never argued.
Shampoo was so wrapped up in her own fantasies about marrying Ranma that she missed the rest of the conversation, until a loud crash brought her back to reality.
"Ranma! What happened?" Kitchen-Destroyer was saying.
Shampoo peeked around the corner a bit and saw Ranma face first on the ground. The necklace worked! It figured, though, that Pervert-girl would use it to hurt her Arien.
Shampoo struggled to remember the rest of the conversation, having been daydreaming for most of it. She needed to know the command. What had the word been that Pervert-girl had used?
She snapped her fingers.
Ah! It had been 'bet'!
Smiling to herself, Shampoo snuck silently away. She'd wait until Ranma was all alone before activating the necklace. And then they'd finally be married!
"Now Arien be under Shampoo control!"
-
She got her chance the next day, when the Tendo father had him gone out for fish.
"Arien! So so good to see you!"
She leapt gracefully in front of him, smiling her best smile for him, as always.
"Too too much coincidence! Shampoo just want to see you!"
She saw him take a hesitant step back and laughed.
"Silly Ranma. Shampoo not hug you- yet. Have much more important thing to do first. But know you like hug too too much, so give you later."
Ranma turned red. Too too cute!
Shampoo smiled, ready to put her plan into action.
"Bet."
-R-
Ranma stared at the Amazon, confused. First, it was Akane, now Shampoo? But then it came back to him what Akane had been trying to do, and he felt a shiver of dread go down his spine. Shampoo was trying to figure out the trigger word for the necklace!
Having come to the right conclusion, Ranma braced himself for her to speak, hoping that she hadn't guessed the word for the trigger.
Nothing.
He opened his eyes and looked at her after a moment of silence had passed. Wasn't she going to start trying? It was then that he noticed her staring at him, confused. And it hit him. She thought that 'bet' was the trigger word! Shampoo must've overheard him and Akane earlier. But then that meant... that Shampoo knew could figure out the word from their conversation.
Ranma turned to run.
-S-
"Ah!"
She had been wondering whether the command had worked and how she could tell when noticed her beloved Arien do an about-face and dash off. She froze for a second before racing after him.
"Arien, come back! Come listen to Shampoo command!"
He didn't do it. Darn it, that word hadn't been the one.
At this rate, she'd never make her husband marry her.
-R-
He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, over buildings and through parks, and even on fences, but she kept up with him every step of the way. He could not let Shampoo catch him and figure out the trigger word, no matter what it actually did to him. Having Akane figure it out was bad enough. He didn't need another one trying.
He was so caught up in his thoughts that he actually didn't see where he was going, and tripped, falling onto the ground. Immediately, he jumped back up, but that split second had allowed Shampoo to catch up to him, and she was now standing right in front of him.
"Urm... Hi, Shampoo."
"Why Arien run away? Shampoo just want say trigger word so we get married. Is want marry Shampoo, yes?"
The she glared at him, as if suspicious.
"Unless want Pervert-girl say command and fall face again."
Ranma felt the old Saotome foot-in-mouth false-pride-and-boasting-to-cover-up-his-true-feelings-for-a-certain-girl survival instinct kick in. Before he knew it, he opened his mouth and retorted
"Hey, I do not like that macho chick! Besides, even with help, Akane could never in a million years beat me."
-A-
Her ears caught Ranma's last words as she walked rounded the corner. They sent an immediate reaction to her body. Her fists clenched and her back became tense, her teeth clenched in her mouth. Akane felt her aura flare up red hot, a tower of anger. How could he be so mean to her? He would pay for that comment. That ungrateful jerk. Seeing red, she stepped out into plain view.
-R-
"You..."
Uh oh. Ranma slowly turned towards the voice and, sure enough, Akane was standing right there.
"Beg!"
"OW!" Ranma was pulled into the ground by the necklace.
"Beg beg beg beg beg!"
"Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!" his body was pushed deeper and deeper with each command.
"Begbegbegbegbegbegbegbegbeg!"
And then she turned on her heel, leaving Ranma in the now crater shaped just like his fallen body.
-end chapter.
end chapter notations: If you've noticed, when Shampoo thinks, her thoughts are written with proper grammer and all, but outloud, she talks like she always does. I figured that in her head, Shampoo is thinking in her native language, so her grammer is correct. Also, if you've noticed, Akane said the trigger word, but before she didn't know it. While I don't have the best explination for that, I will explain it in the next next chapter (in other words, in the chapter after the next one).