Yesterday's Curse
"Um, can I help you miss?"
Ranma Saotome, currently disheveled air to the Anything Goes School of martial arts froze midstep as the question drifted to her ears. The redhead managed to suppress the twitch that the query produced and slowly turned to the concern citizen, whose eyes widened further upon fully taking in the teen's ruffled state. She was definitely attractive if one could look beyond the mud caked skin, light scratches and ripped silk shirt that looked as if it might have once been a deep red before it had been subjected to… high temperature? Crystal blue eyes found his and he could easily see that dispite the frigid look that the young girl was truly a beauty, one that would grow up to be an absolute bomb shell unless he missed his guess. The girl's ragged appearance couldn't hope to hide her figure and it's tattered state even offered tantalizing glimpses of what was beneath.
Still, the citizen forced his mental observations back on track since her condition was disturbing at best. At best she had obviously been in an accident or even a fight. At worst was definitely a possibility of rape at this point even if her collected demeanor spoke to the contrary. The eyes continued to fixate on him, further concerning him.
"Uh, Miss…?"
"Yeah, you can help," A dead smile to match the cool gaze began to creep across her lips. "First, ya can stop my idiot father from screwin' up my life any more than he already has. Second, find a way out of the jotzotzuke Amazon kiss protocals of the. Third, salvage what's left of my best friend's friendship without rippin' her heart out. Fourth, find a good psychiatrist for both Kuno and his sister. Fifth, track down and kill whatever it was my fiancée cooked last night." She paused, and the dead smile turned upward slightly, affecting bitterness. "And if ya should manage that, get Nabs off my ass, keep the martial arts challenges to a minimum and maybe keep Akane from bein' kidnapped for another six months."
The stunned pedestrian blinked, and the redhead snorted to herself, returning back to her original direction of travel. Three steps down the sidewalk she paused and half turned back over her shoulder. "Oh, and if ya can throw me a cure to my curse, it'd be appreciated, ya know?"
Of all the thoughts currently vying for attention in the strangers brain, only one managed its way through the path of confused neurons her request produced. "Ah, which curse is that?"
The girl cocked her head, as if to put some thought into his question, then shrugged. "Pick one. Don't think it matters at this point."
With that, the man was left staring at the bedraggled girl's back as she continued her trudging down the sidewalk.
Ding-ding!
As a rule, everybody is afraid of something. Some people are afraid of spiders. Others are afraid of the dark. A lot of these fears are quite irrational, such as the fear of water on dry land or the color red. Most of Ranma Saotome's fears, however, were quite justified. While many people are afraid of cats, few were wrapped up in fish sausage and tossed into a pit of them. Repeatedly. At the age of five. Nor did they turn into a martial arts berserkers after prolonged exposure to said felines. The same could be said about his fear of water. While this particular phobia was quite innocuous, one had to take into account that Ranma had been exposed to the magics of jusenkyo and could potentially die of embrassment while changing sexes at the wrong moment. Likewise, he was afraid of Akane's cooking, but then who wasn't? Anything that could eat its way through a cast bronze cooking pot, through the countertop and down into the foundation of the house was something to be given a wide berth.
Finally, there was his fear of bells.
Bells were hardly the harbinger of doom for the average seventeen year old Japanese male, unless that seventeen year old Japanese male had been pursued through the back forty of China by a homicidal Amazon, then engaged to marry the very same homicidal Amazon. She was admittedly cute in the eyes of Ranma Saotome, if one could get past the fact that not only had she tried to kill him, but was curse to transform into a cute pink kitten with cold water.
Fear of cats, check.
Fear of water, check.
The bells were almost an aside to that mental checklist, as they invariably signaled the inevitable decent and landing of this Amazon's bicycle on his person, normally his forhead to be specific. Thus it was of little surprise that when the sound reached the redhead's ears she cringed and ducked through the gate to her immediate right in hopes of avoiding the painful event and the glomping that was sure to follow. After that would come Akane. Somehow she would be there to witness the event, where upon Ryoga would wander by…
Thus, Ranma Saotome's fear of small bicycle bells.
The redhead cringed and flattened herself against the inside of the gate wall, hoping to minimize her profile. In retrospect, it could have been any of the thousands of delivery people that conveyed sustenance to the populous of Tokyo, but the Saotome had learned long ago that she was hardly a conduit of good luck and thus pushed her power levels down in hopes to escape notice. After a minute of silence, the pigtailed girl relaxed. Maybe God was cutting her some slack after this mornings escapade she mused and began to take in the details of her hiding spot. Speaking of God, she mused and let her eyes wander across the architecture of the temple grounds she had leaped into during her panicked retreat. The place was a mess, Ranma noted, but its ancient linage was unmistakable. She took a tentative step further onto the property that had saved her from another certain doom and marveled at the peace that permeated the decrepit temple. It may have looked dead but somehow it retained an intangible vibrancy about it. She padded across half dead grass and onto an old stone path that led under a deteriorating wooden arch and to the beaten temple doors themselves, but declined to enter. Instead, she gave the exterior another once-over before simply sitting down on their pitted steps. May have just found a new hiding place, Ranma smiled, marveling at how the property seemed simultaneously remote, yet accessible. It was a bit of a hike from her own stomping grounds, but that just meant a better chance to slip the chaos that was usually gunning for her.
Ranma took deep breath and relaxed, something that was a rare commodity since her run-in with jusenkyo. She had the peace and quiet. Now all she needed was a cup of hot water and she'd be set. Or not, the redhead revised mentally. That guy back there on the street still had to come through on his end of the deal.
What a mess, she groused, kicking a stone away from the base of the steps. Against all odds she had managed to retain her honor, but it was seriously kicking her ass as of late, especially today. Akane's lunch got away and she—he at the time -got the cold shoulder for even suggesting that it need to be caught before somebody got hurt… Or fed, whichever came first. Not that mentioning the latter had helped matters, Ranma admitted silently. Shampoo was more than willing to step to the plate with lunch after that, prompting Ukyo to join in on the impromptu martial arts cooking tournament. Akane's slow boil reached its flashpoint with the arrival of Kodachi and her paralysis muffins, and it was all Ranma could do to keep from getting pulled apart by any one girl. Something had to give, and that something was named Ryoga. Where had he come from? Where did he go? Ranma Saotome sure as hell didn't know, but he stayed long enough to vent his anger and destroy an entire wing of Furinkan in the process. Not that Mousse or Kuno helped any. Or the principle. Of course, none of them were blamed for the destruction. No, that had all been laid solely at her feet. Akane was angry, the rivals were riled and the other fiancées were frenzied.
Which would explain the tattered clothing, scratches and bruises that she now bore. Ranma shook her head slowly. One would have thought that almost being merried would have settled things slightly...
Crapspace Note: Another one where I've largely forgotten what I was going to do with it. I think this was my Ranma gets cured fic, but not. Ranma gets a cure (I'm assuming at this shrine here) but quickly finds the price of the cure is his freedom. Without that single obstacle, pressures mount for him to do something concerning the canon fiancee mess while the cure itself eliminated any outlet to goof off, such as scam treats, eat ice cream etc. The weight gets too heavy and it comes to be that Ranma has use the curse as a necessary psychological outlet and comes to re-realize what he did in book 38... It's just a thing and re-curses himself just to feel whole again. An emo drama if i had to categorize this craptastic work. It may have even been my one and only Ranma-Akane match :o