-+- Standard Disclaimer -+-
The characters depicted in this story are not mine. Sue me and you get nada, cuz that's how much I own. Blah.
-+- End of Disclaimer -+-
Unlikely Companions
A fiction novella by Dave Zhang (dzhang@its.caltech.edu). Comments and criticisms welcomed. Copyright 2003.
"This text is spoken." 'This text is thought.'
Chapter 3: Wherefore Art Thou Hentai?
Ranma-chan and Miroku woke up the morning after Rei battled the first El Quehal, wondering where Yuu was. Not finding him anywhere in the temple, they wanted to go out and look for him. After all, Yuu seemed to view them as friends, otherwise he wouldn't have spent the last of his money bailing them out of jail. Ranma-chan then remembered that Yuu was the only one of the group who actually succeeded in finding a job the previous day, and thought maybe he left for work already.
Miroku, on the other hand, was worried that Yuu was in trouble, and wanted to go search for him. After all, Yuu was the only one of the group who didn't really have any defense against monsters and such.
Grandpa Hino, however, stubbornly refused. "No, Miroku! You are what, 16? You have to go to school then!" 'After all, if you're going to marry Rei you should at least have a decent education.' Grandpa Hino decided Miroku looked decent enough, and possessed enough knowledge of the Shinto ways to be a good match for his grand-daughter.
"As for you, Ranko, you should feel free to stay here with me and let me teach you the Shinto ways," said Grandpa Hino to Ranma-chan with a leer.
"Ah, heh heh... I think I'll take my chances with the school bit." Normally one would never expect to hear Ranma-chan say this, but in the choice between a day of boredom versus a day of constantly fighting off this world's (thankfully less powerful) version of Happosai, Ranma-chan decided on the former.
"School?" asked Miroku. "What is that?"
"School's like a place where ya supposed to learn or something, but most of us just sleep through it."
"I see," said Miroku solemnly. "It is like temple training."
"Ah, kinda like that I guess. Say, where is the school where's supposed to be going to anyway?"
Grandpa Hino gave them directions to Juuban High, following which Ranma-chan dashed off, dragging along Miroku. "Ah, I wonder where Rei is. She didn't come home last night." He then stared at Cherry wordlessly for several minutes. "Bet I can summon a bigger demon than you can!"
"You're on!"
***
Ranma-chan and Miroku ambled to the school, with Ranma-chan walking on the street for once, since she didn't particularly want to draw attention to herself. Well, any more than she already was, anyway, with nearly the entire male population of Juuban High ogling her.
Miroku, for his part, was absolutely delighted to see so many teenage girls gathered in one place. 'Sure beats my temple training.'
Now, Miroku's actually decent-looking, despite his sixteenth century attire. And because of that, he was receiving more than the fair share of attention from the local girls, though not quite as much as Ranma-chan from the boys. Miroku eagerly returned looks of interest, since he had already been--convinced--by Ranma that his female half was not up for dating, or bearing children. Oh well. With so many girls gathered here like this, at least one *had* to be willing to bear his child, right?
One particular Juuban High schoolgirl with long blonde hair decided, from only seeing him from far away, that she had fallen in love at first sight with Miroku.
Makoto paused in mid-sentence when she realized her friend wasn't listening to her, and quickly found the source of distraction. "Hey, he looks just like my..."
"Mine!" Minako firmly declared. "I saw him first!"
"Actually, I'm sure a lot of our classmates saw him before you did..." Ami stopped talking when she noticed Minako giving her a death-glare.
"These mere peasants cannot keep a princess such as myself from her chosen corsort!" General feelings of discomfort pervaded the rest of the Inner Senshi standing beside her (except Rei, of course, who was still sleeping in the local hospital). Elsewhere, in another dimension, Kuno suddenly shuddered.
Makoto, upset at having let Minako call dibs on the new boy, decided to tease Minako a bit. "Well, that new girl he's walking in with sure seems to know him pretty well, eh?"
Makoto debated whether that was the wrong choice of words as she coughed in the dust trails left behind by an incited Minako as she darted towards the duo.
***
'Ugh,' thought Ranma-chan. Because he didn't want to reveal his male identity to his priest host, he had to attend school as a girl as well, and of course that meant lots of boys staring at her. 'Oh well, guess it can't be helped. At least there's no Kuno saying...'
"Vile witch!" declared Minako, pointing a pencil at Ranma-chan. "How dare you try to ensnare a prince among men!"
"Huh?" Ranma-chan looked to Miroku, and then understood. He felt a very unwelcome gust of nostalgia. He had found the counterparts of two people he knew from his world, and it was his luck they just had to be Happosai and Kodachi.
"Um... Mina-chan is starting to get a wee bit desperate, isn't she?" The others nodded sagely. If even Usagi notices something, then it must be blatantly obvious to the rest of the world.
Miroku immediately dashed to Minako's side, "Don't worry! I'm all yours!"
Minako was very pleasantly surprised to hear that, after all she was not so delusional as to actually believe her figure was better than Ranma-chan's. 'Maybe they're cousins or somethings. Mako-chan was so wrong!' Minako giggled as she wrapped an arm around Miroku as she led him into the school.
"Come on, ah...?"
"Miroku," said Miroku with a bow. "And you? What might your name be, pretty girl?"
"I'm Minako! But *you* can call me Mina-chan! You're new to this school right? Come on, I'll take you to the office to get your paperwork done and then I'll introduce you to my friends!"
"Sounds good! Would you happen to be willing to bear my child?"
Minako blinked. That sounded like a proposal from the cute new boy. He must obviously also believe in love at first sight, and had fallen madly in love for her! Minako ecstatically chattered away.
Ami, Makoto, and Usagi approached the new girl. While it looked like she wouldn't be lacking attention from the fouler sex of Juuban High, she looked like she could use friends who weren't trying to get into her pants. That, and they felt guilty for Mina-chan kidnapping her companion.
"Hi, I'm Ami. These are my friends, Usagi and Makoto. What's your name?"
Ranma-chan was snapped out of his reverie of contemplating why this world also had so many desperate females when he noticed himself being talked to.
"Akan..." Ranma-chan blinked and continued dumbly staring at Ami. 'No, this isn't Akane. Her hair is lighter, and she's smiling! Akane smiles about as often as werewolves juggle silverware. Though she sure is cute when she does smile. Almost as cute as this girl's smile...'
Usagi fiercely waved her hand about three inches in front of Ranma-chan's eyes, trying to grab her attention. "Wah! The new girl has gone stupid!"
"Hey! I ain't stupid!" That was enough to bring Ranma-chan back to reality. "Ah, sorry 'bout that. I'm Ranko. Ami, you look lots like a friend of mine."
"Well, we'd love to be friends with you, Ranko."
Usagi bobbed her head up and down vigorously in affirmation. "Yeah! We can go after school to the Crown Arcade together and then we can all have some ice cream and then you can meet my boyfriend Mamo-chan and yeah we'll have lots of fun!"
Ranma-chan blinked. "Say, Usagi? You ever write a long history report with a single run-on sentence?"
Ami giggled. "She would if she ever remembered to do them."
***
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, for Minako, the homeroom teacher was not accomodating to her requests to have Miroku sit next to her, and Miroku got relegated to a seat in the middle of a group of boys. Ranma-chan, however, was assigned sit next to her and the rest of the Sailor Senshi.
After giving Miroku one last forlorn look as if from a lover separated, Minako finally turned to Ranma-chan.
Ami introduced them, "Mina-chan, this is Ranko; Ranko-chan this is Minako."
Mina-chan released another lovesick sigh before cheerily asking Ranma-chan, "So, how are you and Miroku related? Brother and sister? Cousins?"
"Na, we're just friends."
"Oh? How did you guys meet?"
Ranma-chan scratched her head, as she looked down at her desk, wondering what the best way to describe how he met Miroku is, without being labeled insane. "Ah, who remembers? We go way back."
Ranma-chan suddenly noticed a vein throbbing on Minako's forehead.
"Childhood friends, eh?" said the blonde, radiating a distinctively hostile aura. 'Wait, I shouldn't be doing this,' Mina-chan thought. She quickly banished her hostility and smiled affectedly at Ranma-chan, "Great! It's good to meet my new boyfriend's childhood friend."
"Ah?" said Ranma-chan eloquently. Then, Ranma-chan laughed merrily as he realized that with Minako hovering around Miroku, his female half will be free from Miroku's advances. "Great! I'm genuinely happy for you guys!"
"Oh?" Minako looked blankly at Ranma-chan. 'It couldn't have been that easy, could it? Ranko really wasn't interested in a hunk like Miroku at all?' Then she noticed Ranma-chan stealing another glance at Ami. "Ohhhhh!" said Minako out loud with a wide smile, greatly relieved.
At that moment, the teacher quieted the class, and spoke, "Class, today we have two new students." Turning to Miroku and Ranma-chan, he said, "Yuu and Ranko, please stand up and introduce yourselves."
"Na, that's Miroku," said Ranma-chan. "Yuu's ah... sick today. Yeah! That's it. He'll be coming when he get better. I'm Ranko Saotome, heir to the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts! I'm the best! Me and my pop have been training for ten years. That's about it, I guess."
"Greeting, fellow students," said Miroku. "I am Miroku, and for most of my life I have been a wandering priest. I am glad to meet you all." Miroku flashed the girls of the class a charming smile, which earned him appreciative looks from most of the female students, and an icy stare from Minako.
'Heh,' thought Ranma. 'This is great! Someone is taking my place for fiancee magnet! Now I wonder if I can transpose my water-magnet curse onto Cherry or something.'
***
Cherry looked at the looming ten-foot tall figure of the barbazu, complete with its whip-like tail and wiry beard. The shock-troop of Hell looked at the two, wondering how it was ever going to distinguish which was the one who summoned it.
"Impressive," said Cherry. "My turn, right?"
He waved around his arms a bit, chanting something or other, and some charms that he threw into the air caught fire. As they burned, a portal to the ice-planes opened, and a large twelve-foot large insectoid demon was dragged by an invisible force out of its plane of existence into the SM universe. When the charms finished burning, the portal closed.
The gelugon quickly tore the barbazu to shreds with its gigantic mouth-pincers and its enormous claws. With that out of the way, it observed the two dimunitive priests, and wondered which one was its master.
Grandpa Hino shivered under the icy breath of the gelugon, and said to his competitor, "Haven't seen one of those in a while. My turn now, right?"
***
"Ok, class. We'll end the history class here. Have fun at lunch."
Ranma-chan instinctly awoke when he heard the word lunch. 'Great! Something fun at last!' And then he remembered that there was no Ukyo or Shampoo in this world to offer him free meals.
"Ranko-chan, why don't you join us for lunch?"
"Sure, Ami-chan!" Ranma-chan paused. 'Wait, did that really come out like I thought it did?'
Minako, observing the two, raised an eyebrow, before suddenly remembering it's lunchtime, which meant private time for her and Miroku. "Miroku-honey!!!" shouted Minako as she bolted to him.
"So that's how it turned out." Miroku, on the other hand, had been listening intently to the teacher, since the topic of the day's lesson concerned his own time period. Not that he found every class as interesting as the last one. After all, he decided he definitely didn't need to know a weird new language called 'Engrish.'
"Come on, Miroku, let's have lunch together alone by the tree!" Minako proceeded to wrap an arm around Miroku's back to guide him alone, and also to ward away other girls. In doing so, parts of her body pressed up against Miroku's chest.
Grinning like a fool, Miroku was more than happy to oblige.
"I'll have to introduce that guy to Shampoo if we ever get to my homeworld," mused Ranma aloud.
"Shampoo?" asked Usagi. "Miroku's hair looks okay to me but of course it's not as nice as Mamo-chan's because no boy can ever compare to Mamo-chan because he's just so cute and nice and best of all he's my boyfriend!"
"Homeworld?" asked Makoto. "Sounds like something from a science fiction novel."
"Ah... I meant home is so far away it seems like a different world."
"Where is your home anyway?"
"Ah... it's really far away."
Ami would tell Ranma didn't really want to talk about it, so she oliged him by changing topics. "Say, where's your lunch?"
"I kinda forgot to bring it."
"You can have half of mine," said Makoto, smiling. "I always pack a big lunch."
"Wah!!! But what will I eat then, Mako-chan?"
Ranma-chan joined Ami and Makoto in pointing to Usagi's bag lunch.
"But but but... it's not enough!"
"Ranko didn't bring anything though," said Ami. "You don't want our new friend to go hungry, do you Usagi-chan?"
"Gr... fine." Usagi knew it was the right thing to do. And as the leader of the Senshi, she absolutely had to be a good role-model and put others' happiness in front of her own. And so she will. But she didn't have to be happy about it! "We're definitely stopping by for ice cream after school though!"
***
Miroku was frustrated: the pretty blonde was foiling his every attempt to feel her up. His hand closest to her, she had grasped with her own like an iron clamp, absolutely refusing to let go for even a single moment. Of course, that alone would not have stopped Miroku. But when he reached around with his other arm to try to touch her chest area, Minako dove under his arm and into his embrace, so that Miroku was left stroking her hair.
Finally, Miroku had enough, and instead of waiting for her to dash into his arms, he took initiative and dove into her arms. Hey, that way at least his head would be cradled by her bosom, and he just might be able to sneak his other hand in too...
Unfortunately, Minako also chose that moment to try to embrace him again, so what ended up happening was the two bumping heads rathering brusquely. Basic laws of momentum state that when two object collide into each other with equal speed, the more massive one wins. And thus Miroku landed on the floor on top of an unconscious Minako, with his hands on her assets.
Miroku quickly got up and shirked his hands away. This was not missed by Ranma-chan, even though she hadn't been paying too much attention. 'Hm. Miroku's actually honorable enough not to take advantage of unconscious girls,' thought Ranma with some relief.
***
"Um... Ami-chan?"
"Yes, Mako-chan?" Ami couldn't understand why Makoto had dragged her off into a corner to talk to her.
"Don't you think Ranko's, um... a little close to you?"
"Well, we're her only friends here in this new school. What's wrong with her wanting to be good friends with us?"
Makoto considered what the best way to say this to her friend is. "What I'm saying is that... isn't it odd how she hasn't really talked to Miroku at all despite them being really old friends?"
"Well, I think that's mainly Mina-chan's fault."
'Ami has an IQ of how much, and she doesn't understand what I'm hinting at!?' Makoto decided to try one last time. "All I'm saying is that I think Ranko seems to like girls a lot more than boys... and you in particular. She may be a lot like Haruka."
"What do you..." Ami's voice trailed off as she finally understand what her friend means. "Ohh..." Ami thought about it some, and then shook her head and said, "No, I think Ranko-chan just wants a good friend. I can kind of feel a sadness in her eyes, like she has suffered countless tragic developments. Maybe after we've know her for a while she'll feel tell us. I think she has a kind heart though; we should be supportive friends. Come on now, we'll be late to class."
***
Ranma-chan awoke again from class when he heard the words "P.E." 'All right! Finally something I can show off at!' thought Ranma-chan as she dashed into the locker room.
Since Ranma usually went to school in boy-form, he dashed into the boys' locker room out of habit. Ranma-chan was busy removing her shirt, still wondering why all the boys in the boy froze in their various states of undress when something finally clicked in her brain, and she realized she was still a she.
She dashed out of locker room. Before long she realized she was completely topless, at the combined stares of everyone in the hall, both male and female. Ranma-chan took the plunge and dashed into the girls' locker room.
"Um, Ranko-chan?" said Ami, looking at her new friend in amusement. "Why are your eyes closed? Won't you need to see to put on your swimsuit?"
"Huh? Swimsuit?" said Ranma-chan as his eyes snapped open to the scene of Ami putting on a fairly modest one-piece swimsuit. Well, it would have been modest after she put it on completely. Ranma-chan felt her face flush beet red.
"Yeah, today's swimming, my favorite. Did you bring your swimsuit?"
'Crap,' thought Ranma-chan. "Uh... I didn't know."
"Here," said Ami, holding out another swimsuit. "You can use one of my spares."
"Um..." If what Ranma-chan had felt wearing some of Akane's clothes was discomfort, wearing the swimsuit of a girl he barely knew could certainly be classified as malaise. Ranma-chan suppressed an embarrassed shudder at the thought of having some of her more intimate body parts contacting the same cloth that contacted Ami's corresponding ones. "I don't know if that's a good idea."
"Sensei's not going to excuse you from class, and you don't want to swim naked, do you?"
'Well, I don't mind it so much, but everyone else seems to...' "Oh heck, I'll just wear it!"
Ami was still confused why the new girl was putting up so much resistance.
***
Swimming was fun; Ranma had always liked it. Ami also really liked it. Now, one would think that it would please Ranma that he and his new female friend shared such an interest, but at the moment it was vexing our aquatranssexual hero. Ranma had made up his mind to go shower only after everyone else is done, but Ami also lingered in the pool as the other girls filed out near the end of the class. Ranma decided to do another lap at top speed. And then another when he saw Ami was still swimming.
Finally, Ami got out of the pool and into the shower room. Ranma-chan waited five more minutes before getting out of the pool himself.
"Hello?" 'No response. Good, that meant Ami-chan left already.'
Ranma-chan scuttled into the shower and peeled off Ami's swimsuit, before she turned on the hot water. He sigh in comfort as the metamorphesis effected. It was good to be a guy again, even if only briefly.
Ranma turned around immediately when he heard a sound. The sound of another swimsuit impacting the floor. Ami, in her normal school uniform now, stared at Ranma with a shocked expression on her face.
"Uh-oh."
It was very lucky for Ranma that the girl who stood in front of him was Ami Mizuno, and not anyone else. For anyone else, the first thing they would have noticed was that Ranma was a *naked* male. Ami, however, noticed that Ranma was a naked *male*. The surprise that one could change from female to male was only superceded by her surprise of actually witnessing it.
Realizing that Ami was about Akane's polar opposite in terms of temperament, Ranma relaxed slightly, and grabbed the nearest towel to cover himself with. "Hi, I'm Ranma Saotome. Sorry about this..."
***
Ranma-chan and Ami walked back to class ten minutes late, after Ranma told Ami a very abridged version of his life so far. It was mostly accurate, except Ranma subconsciously left out that Akane, Ukyo, and Shampoo were fiancees (he refered to them as just friends). By agreement, Ranma would still stay as Ranma-chan going by the name of Ranko at school, because the change would be too hard to explain. Perhaps later Ami would arrange for Ranko to be transferred away again, and Ranma to be transferred in.
At the moment though, Ami's mind was a blur, as she felt the anger at Genma for the Neko-ken training, sympathy at Ranma being torn away from his childhood buddy, sadness at Ranma's rejection by the Tendos for his curse, and most of all a warm feeling of companionship to this Ranma Saotome who now she understood better than anyone other than her mother and her Senshi friends.
Ami didn't have many friends either. There were the fellow Senshi of course, but they more-or-less had to be friends. Other than that, there had been only emptiness, that had only been enhanced by positive feedback--the more lonely Ami felt, the more she would turn to books and knowledge as a source of distraction, as a mechanism to keep the sadness to a dull simmer. Now, with this Ranma, who life and experiences were so polarly disparate in some ways, but also intangibly similar in others, Ami had a chance for friendship. A voluntary one.
Ami suddenly remembered her conversation with Makoto earlier in the day, and consequently a rosy tinge formed on her visage. She didn't dare raise her hopes too much, but eventually, just maybe, after Ranma and her became good friends... they could be more than just friends.
--End of Chapter 3--
// Demon names stolen from a rogueish game called Angband. Warning! It's very addictive and time consuming. It's fun though. Working on a variant called Ranmaband. // Engrish is memorialized at // The chapter title is a play on words. Hentai in its traditional meaning, denotes someone who is (sexually) perverted. However, it also can be literally translated to mean "changing states."