Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2, its characters and concepts belong to Rumiko Takahashi and those enterprises to whom she has given publishing rights. Ah! Megami-sama, its characters and concepts belong to Fujishima Kosuke and those enterprises to whom such rights were given. This work does not intend to infringe upon those rights, nor is it intended for commercial use.
Chapter 3
One of the greatest mysteries of Nerima was the ladle lady. She was ancient even by amazon standards and she has always been there, as far as any of the residents could remember, even if almost no one remembered her name.
The ladle lady, as she was nicknamed because of her habit of washing the entrance of her house several times a day, had several strange abilities. One of them was to detect someone cursed by Jusenkyou, or so the cursed ones thought. How she did that no one knew – it was Nerima anyway.
Once her target was near, she would just position herself on the sidewalk and looking totally inconspicuous she would calmly wash the pavement, waiting for her prey to fall on her trap, just like a fly falling prey to a carnivorous plant. Another of her abilities was not to be noticeable by the local martial artists, much like Toufuu-sensei's ability to mask his presence.
Perhaps she was the heir and last practitioner of an almost forgotten branch of the Art that involved splashing others by surprise, perhaps she was an agent deeply planted by whatever forces that had created Jusenkyou in order to make the life of the afflicted really miserable or perhaps she was just a mean old lady with a ladle and no fear to use it.
Occam's razor would dictate that the last option was the correct one, but the habitants of Nerima knew better than trust its sharp edge around the neighborhood.
And no one even complained. It was just wrong to accuse someone so old and fragile for something so innocent as washing the sidewalk. She was always there and always with her trusty ladle. To blame her would be like blaming a tree for being there upon bumping on it. Not even Ryouga did that. Blame Ranma, maybe, but never the tree.
It was ironic how everyone dismissed Ranma and company's excuses as nonsense. They saw the ladle lady, how couldn't they?
Ukyou thought so, too. Until today.
"BWEEE!"
Perhaps she was the undefeated heir and last practitioner of water splashing. Another mark for her on the wall.
'My clothes! My spatula! What I'm going to do now?' considered a very pissed off Ukyou, doing her best to move out her traditional okonomiyaki chef uniform. 'At least I wasn't crushed by my own spatula. Gah! If I get hot water right now I'll be naked!'
Ukyou decided to make a run for her restaurant, berating herself for not telling Konatsu the details of this morning incident. She didn't make it far, as a pair of strong hands picked her up by surprise.
"BWEEE!" she squirmed, trying to get away from her captor. It was very unnerving to be manhandled like this. She was feeling utterly helpless.
"P-chan! What are you doing here? Akane is probably looking for you."
Ukyou relaxed as she saw the kind eyes of doctor Toufuu. She would be safe with him and perhaps she would be able to find hot water and a good opportunity to use it. 'Strange, he isn't going to his office,' she thought, before realizing his real destination.
---
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The pungent scream broke Nabiki out of her reverie and she ran to the bathroom to figure the things out. She was very seldom taken unprepared like this and she would try to gather the missing pieces of this puzzle as swiftly as possible. Kasumi was following just behind her.
"What was that?" asked a worried Kasumi.
"Delayed reaction, maybe," Nabiki guessed.
"Oh, we'll need Akane here if Ranma is acting like a cat."
"Or splash him with hot water." But Nabiki was worried with her little sister's absence, one of the questions she was seeking answers for.
Stopping by the bathroom's door, Nabiki found a female Ranma staring at the mirror, horrified with something, the door to the furou wide open and a naked, male Ranma looking at his female counterpart open mouthed. The black cat was nowhere to be found.
Before Nabiki could analyze the new pieces of the puzzle, Kasumi stopped behind her and shouted a short scream. The sight was too much to the usually collected girl.
The scream brought the attention of the Ranmas to them, but the female Ranma quickly turned her head to the male one with a hurt expression on her face and stormed out of the bathroom, pushing the Tendou girls out of the way.
Akane's mind was in turmoil. She couldn't understand how this could have befallen her. All she wanted to do was get away from it right now.
"What have you done now, boy?" bellowed Genma, with Soun just behind his large bulk. The bald man was looking angry and was blocking the way. Kasumi's yell must have attracted the pair's attention.
Akane's eyes narrowed at the over-weight martial artist. Her confusion ceased as an emotion well known to her overwhelmed her senses. Her anger was back. With reinforcements.
"You," she managed to say, still holding her temper. "GO AWAY!"
"You won't go anywhere until you've told me what I want to know, boy!" he snapped back.
"You... you JACKASS!" and she sprinted in his direction.
Genma was ready, or so he'd thought. It was uncommon for the boy to strike in anger like this, but the life of a true martial artist was fraught with surprises. Something strange was going on here and he was sure he could hold the boy until he calmed down a bit.
After all, he had trained Ranma for more than ten years and he was quite used to his style. He was outmatched, he knew that. Since they'd arrived at the Tendous, the boy's life was one challenge after another and his skill had grown tremendously. But all he had to do was hold him for a little while, a task he was sure he could accomplish.
Unfortunately for Genma, he wasn't prepared to face the mistress of the indiscriminate malleting ryuu. He had positioned himself to meet the boy's usual initial salvo and didn't manage to adjust his defense to the mallet until a couple of blows had already landed. Concentration lost, he was thrown back to the living room and from there he was sent flying to the koi pound.
"AND STAY THERE!"
Nabiki was watching the scene from a safe distance. She was used to see Ranma beat her father on occasion, but nothing like this. It took a lot to get this kind of reaction from Ranma. And why would he use a mallet to send his old man to the koi pound, of all weapons? She could swear that the style was the same used by her little sis. She sighed, frustrated. Instead of answers, she was only collecting more questions.
The male Ranma passed by her in a hurry, clad with a bath towel only. Nabiki had almost forgotten about him. Was he a mirrored version of her? Was he the true one? Or could both be Ranma? Her experience told her not to discard any options.
Soun, on the other hand, didn't have the same analytical mind her middle daughter possessed and couldn't couple with the situation as easily. He settled on the zen way – the mind of no mind – and not to deal with it.
---
Ranma awakened in the hot waters of the furou. He had no idea of how he ended up there. The last thing he could recall was seeing her girl body, a sight he had hoped never to see again, where Akane had been.
Now he was seeing her again, regarding the mirror. After a moment Nabiki and then Kasumi showed up on the door, the latter screamed and her girl version glanced him, pain in her eyes, and then she got out of the bathroom.
'She... she reacted just like Akane would!' Ranma thought. 'How? That ain't supposed to be happenin'! Oh no! NO! I wrote 'my cursed body' on that stupid card!'
Hearing his father yell something, Ranma realized that him and the others must be thinking that Akane was him. He got a towel and ran after his father to stop him. His father only barked like that when he was looking for a fight.
He was too late, but to his surprise Akane managed to hold her own against his old man. She was about to climb the stairs when he stopped her.
"Akane! Stop! I... I," he stammered.
Slowly she turned to face him. Ranma was expecting lots of things. Getting away with full use of his limbs was not one of them but she surprised him when she dropped the mallet, sat on the stairs and began to cry.
"I'm sorry," Ranma apologized, his voice almost a whisper. He'd rather face the mallet.
Nabiki interrupted him. "If you two don't mind," she said wryly, "I, for one, want to know what's going on here."
Ranma nodded apprehensively. He really preferred to face the mallet. At least he had lots of experience with it.
"I... I'll need some hot water."
"I'll get it," offered Kasumi.
"What do you need hot water for?" asked Nabiki in her veiled threat tone she had specialized in. "Spill the beans already, Saotome. And why are you calling her Akane?"
At that Akane started to wail. Ranma pleaded the fifth and waited until Kasumi returned with a kettle of hot water and then he spilled its contents on the redhead's hair.
Nabiki gasped at the sight in front of her. The girl's bright red hair changed to a dark bluish tone and she gained a few inches in height. Her face morphed into a well known and cherished one. Her little sister was there, wet and miserable, holding her knees tight and looking only at her feet.
"Oh, my!" exclaimed Kasumi, genuinely astonished. She sat by her side and touched her shoulder. "Are you alright, Akane?"
"Oh, Kasumi," she wailed, hugging her older sister.
"Hush, Akane, it'll be alright."
Trusting Kasumi to do the mothering, Nabiki opted to use her skills of choice, intimidation and exploitation, on Ranma, the only one in condition to give her the answers she needed. 'At least father is still out of it,' she thought. 'He'll blow a gasket when he hears about this.'
"I take it," she said, turning to Ranma, "that you are no longer cursed."
"I'm still cursed," he replied sullenly, without taking his eyes off a sobbing Akane. 'Why she's crying like this? What's up with her?'
"Then we will have twins around?"
"Huh?" was his intelligent response, turning to face Nabiki one second too late to avoid the glass of water that had been thrown at him.
Neko-Ranma meowed angrily at Nabiki and dodged her when she tried to pick him up.
"This just keeps getting better and better," Nabiki said dryly. "I think we'll need more hot water".
---
"You want to know the direction to the Nerima Ward?" asked the bubbly blonde. Before Mousse could confirm his question, she continued. "Please, sir, wait here for just a minute!" and she began to climb the stairs to the Shinto temple in the hilltop.
Mousse cursed mentally. He was hungry and tired. He could be near Tokyo right now, but without directions or someone to follow he could easily end up arriving in Hokkaido, so he had no choice but to wait. The blonde didn't look like someone he could trust, but still a much better option than going around on his own. And he could use the time to rest for a little while.
'Of all those cards I had to pick just Hibiki's wanderlust! That's probably the worst one in whole pack! Argh! I'll kill that bastard once I find him, he separated me from my beloved Shampoo!'
The blonde was true to her word and soon she was descending the stairs, unceremoniously dragging an aggravated brunette with her. As soon as they stopped, the blonde blurted out. "Ask her!"
"Let me go, Mihoshi!" yelled the brunette, breaking free from the blonde. "What was on your mind to you to do that?"
Mihoshi just pointed the brunette out to Mousse and repeated. "Ask her!"
Mousse was in no mood to play games. All he wanted was the information and he would leave as soon as possible, so he decided to try the brunette. She looked like she was playing with a full deck.
"Miss, you would please give me the directions to the Nerima Ward in Tokyo?"
"See? Another one! Pay up, Kyone!"
Kyone left eye twitched. Just her luck to lose a bet with Mihoshi of all the people! And a sure one, too. How was she supposed to know that there where people with the same sense of direction of that bandanna clad boy around?
'Washuu assured us it wasn't contagious, perhaps he was honestly asking for directions,' she hoped. "You must get down to that road and turn left." She reinforced the point by waving both hands in the proper direction.
Mousse thanked the pair and left in a hurry. He didn't understand what they were talking about, but surely it involved Ryouga. He had been everywhere in his eternal quest to reach Nerima, and almost everyone he'd asked for directions had either seen or heard of him.
The girls kept track of his moves until he reached the crossroad... and went the wrong away. Mihoshi was jumping in joy. "Yay! All the ice cream I can eat!"
Kyone's left eye twitched again. 'That'll be expensive,' she thought, shuddering. "At least Washuu didn't get him to run some experiments with."
"Ahem."
Both members of the galactic police looked behind at the newcomer. "Ah, Washuu-chan," completed Kyone.
"That's better. Now Mihoshi, why did you feel the need to kidnap Kyone like that? What's the matter?"
"Ice cream!" she answered, doing a 'V' with her fingers.
Washuu raised an eyebrow at that. "And how would dragging Kyone here would grant you ice cream, Mihoshi?"
"Him!" the blonde replied, pointing to the white robed boy who was quickly disappearing in the distance.
Washuu gave up hope of receiving any useful information from the over excited blonde and turned to Kyone.
"I lost a bet," she sighed. "That boy wanted to go to Nerima and he went the wrong way after we gave him directions."
"Another one!" Washuu exclaimed. "I must take him to the lab!" Opening her lab door out of thin air, she vanished. The galactic cops knew where it would reappear and with no surprise they observed it open just behind the boy and an arm pulling him inside.
Kyone just shook her head. "Poor boy... well, better him than me."
"Com'on, Kyone, let's go to town!"
The brunette sighed again. Resistance was futile. "Hold a second, I'll go fetch my purse."
---
The small black piglet was becoming more and more agitated in Toufuu's hands. The doctor briefly wondered if P-chan didn't want to go home, but quickly dismissed the thought. He became more interested in testing how similar the pig's physiology was to the human one. With the tip of fingers he sensed a small clutch of nerves in the pig's neck. In humans the right amount of pressure would put the patient into a state of lethargy very close to sleep, but would it cause the same reaction on small piglets?
Toufuu decided there would be no harm in doing the little test and he would rather be carrying a peaceful pet, so he lightly tapped the spot. With satisfaction he observed P-chan stop his squirming. Expecting the effect to pass soon, he pressed his march.
The Tendou doujou was close and he reached the gates in no time. He was received by a somewhat bruised panda.
"Hello, Saotome-san. Heavy spar session this afternoon?"
"Growf!" [I wish,] the panda showed a wooden sign. [Come in, sensei,] he finished, flipping it. He decided to stay outside until he was sure the boy has cooled down.
'That was odd,' thought the doctor. 'Genma didn't say anything about the children problems, I wonder if they are trying to keep it a secret.' He wasn't a strange to the household, so he allowed himself in.
"Good afternoon!" he greeted the presents, which were only Akane and... Kasumi.
"Oh, he-he-hello Kasumi!" he stammered, glasses slowly but inexorably fogging over. "To find you here of all places!"
"Oh, sensei, but I live here," she answered, still holding her baby sister. Kasumi couldn't help but find the doctor's sense of humor very odd.
"Haha! Right! Silly me!"
Losing his grip on reality, the good doctor's hold on the small and subdued piglet became too tight and P-chan, even dazed, protested against it.
The sound was very low but Akane heard it.
"P-CHAN! You're back!" Akane ran and snatched the little pig from Toufuu's hands before something nasty could happen. She trusted him with her life, but she knew well the damage his Kasumi-induced hysteria could provoke and P-chan was just a piglet.
With her pet safe she decided to seek asylum in her own bedroom. Akane wasn't feeling like talking to anyone, at least not now.
Kasumi waited until she heard the door close upstairs before addressing the doctor. "Please forgive my sister for not thanking you, sensei, she didn't mean to be disrespectful. She has a lot on her mind right now. I'm sure she appreciates it. Did you come by just because of Akane's pet?"
"Hai!"
That wasn't the complete truth but it wasn't a lie either. He had found the pet on the street by coincidence. A small part of his mind registered Kasumi's words about her little sister, but he was really concentrating in retaining the use of his mental faculties. He didn't trust himself with larger words either, so a simple 'hai' would have to do.
It didn't.
Completely satisfied with his answer, the eldest Tendou daughter beamed at him and her smile opened radiantly. "Thank you for time, sensei. You brought P-chan back just when Akane needed her pet the most. You're such a good family friend, how can we express our gratitude?." Acting on impulse for once, Kasumi kissed the doctor on the cheek.
Toufuu's already weakened defenses crumbled at her sunny smile, but the soft brush of her limps on his skin was the coup de grace. To Kasumi it seemed the doctor exploded, unleashing a wordless cry of pure joy and running out the living room into the garden.
"He's so silly!" Kasumi happily exclaimed between giggles as she headed to the kitchen. She knew the doctor loved her cookies and he has just gained lots of points on Kasumi's book. Yes, he deserved her special chocolate cookies for this.
---
The doujou was her best chance at privacy and Nabiki waved to Ranma to follow her there. Neko-Ranma knew that this confrontation was inevitable so he decided to face it like a man among men. Or a cat among men. Whatever. Besides, Nabiki was carrying the kettle with hot water.
He was hating it already, even the simplest movements, like grabbing something, were almost impossible to him now. He hated being helpless. How did Shampoo put up with it? Or Ryouga, which curse was probably worse still? He found a new respect to both of them now that he was walking a mile in their paws.
He also hated the prospect of being naked each time the curse was reversed. If this curse kept being triggered at the worst possible moments like his old Nyannichuan curse, he was bound to be decked several times a day for perversion by mobs of angry females and he would be flying long miles via Air Akane.
He only hoped that Nabiki wouldn't have a fit when he transformed or a fiancée would show up at the doujou at that time. At least Nabiki wouldn't try to crush him with a stone lantern or with the living room table. The problem would be if she decided to get him in non physical ways. Yes, that would be a big problem.
Inside the training hall, Nabiki got an used gi and prepared to throw it at Ranma, who was relieved that she understood what was about to happen. For the first time in months he was glad Nabiki was an untraditional Japanese girl that admitted no nonsense like this.
Nabiki doused him and turned her head, offering him the gi. Ranma recovered his decency before anyone could interrupt them.
"Talk, Saotome," Nabiki told him dryly. "Talk until you've told me everything that happened to my baby sister, and if I find it to be your responsibility, may the Kami have mercy on you, because I'll make you wish you hadn't been born."
Ranma winced at her words, cleared his throat and began to tell her the strange story of the game they'd played.
---
Saotome Genma was not happy.
Sure, his useless excuse of a son had hammered him into the koi pound again, the brat, but that wasn't so bad. He was used to it and at least it was a private matter. He wasn't used to be humiliated in public like he was being right now, however.
He had heard doctor Toufuu's scream, he should have been able to figure out what could possibly make him yell like that, he chastised himself as he was spun through the streets of Nerima.
He had reacted too slowly, too. He saw the look on his face as he'd run in his direction with the speed of a bullet train. One second, he had one second to invoke the Umisenken's protection and fade away safely, but he had hesitated. Few things he held sacred in this life and one of them was the seal he had placed on the techniques of his creation, and his conscience robbed the precious second he had.
'Serves me right to have bothered to listen to it.'
He considered breaking the hold the doctor had on his hands, but images of his son's fight against the golden pair kept popping on his mind. He didn't want to be smashed against a wall, and he estimated the centrifugal force created by the doctor twirl to be even greater than that created by Mikado Sanzenin.
So he decided to grimly accept being waltzed around. He wasn't Betty, the sensei's skeleton, but a much heavier giant panda. The doctor wouldn't be able to keep this rhythm for much longer, would he?
Damn, he might. Genma had never seen the doctor so out of it before. 'Someone stop the world,' he pleaded mentally. 'I want off!'
---
"Oh, P-chan, what am I going to do now? I'm cursed just like Ranma," Akane confided to her pet, an habit she had developed shortly after adopting the black piglet. Ranma'd entered her life like a typhoon and then almost everything changed and sure she did have problems with it. Talking to P-chan helped her to cool down and gain some perspective on whatever was troubling her. And he had the most intelligent eyes and somehow he always made noises as if he understood what she was talking about and was trying to reply. She really hated it when he wasn't around.
"Bwee?" (you too, sugar?). That was bad. Doctor Toufuu had used the Vulcan nerve pinch or something akin on her and when she opened her eyes again she was on Akane's lap on her bed. The girl had obviously been crying and she was holding her with a dead man's grip. The only thing left to her was play along, a role she wasn't comfortable with. At least she would discover what had befallen them. 'I wonder if she's a duck or a cat.'
"Yes, P-chan. And Ranma's curse changed, now he becomes a black cat."
"BWEE?" (that bimbo did that?). 'Argh! Stupid amazons! That means Akane turns into a duck.'
"Where's your bandanna, baby, have you lost it?"
"Bwee?" (what she's talking about?)
"No problem, P-chan. I'll ask Ryouga for another one when he shows up again. I'm sure he has a lot of them. I wonder how he's doing."
"BWEEE!" (Who cares? I hope he's dead, the bastard!)
Silently Akane began to sob again and soon she cried herself to sleep. But her hold didn't relaxed one inch and after a couple of minutes the silence and the heat overcame Ukyou's senses and she slept, too.
---
"... and then I woke in the furo," Ranma finished his narrative. Stoically he waited for the verdict.
Nabiki rubbed her temples for a long time. "I see," she finally said. "Well, that could have been worse, much worse."
"Yeah, Akane could have got Mousse's curse or somethin'."
"That too, but I was talking about your curse."
"Huh? What about my curse?"
"I think that the demoness would try to interpret whatever you've wrote in the worst possible form, Ranma. If you had wrote just your curse, she might have taken it as 'aquatranssexualism'."
"Gah!" the thought of an otoko-Akane wielding a giant sledgehammer crossed his mind, making him shudder.
"'Gah' indeed, Ranma. All things considered it was probably a good thing you'd written it that way. Who knows how she might have treated a Nyannichuan curse, if you'd written that?" she pointed out. "She forced you guys to pick something, so not playing the game wasn't a solution."
"So, am I off the hook?"
"This time, yes, Saotome. Could have been dumb luck, but it probably saved Akane from the worst. And it doesn't seem like the demon was after you personally. You aren't engaged to her, are you?"
"NO!"
"Heh, that's a first. What have you wished away, by the way? And how you didn't go crazy by turning in a cat?"
"Feh, do you think I'm dumb? I was sure Shampoo would pick her Maoniichuan curse, and with my luck I thought it would a good thing to lose the Nekoken."
"That was unusually clever of you, Ranma-kun," she complimented. "But you didn't say what else you've got."
"No idea," he shrugged. "Dunno what Akane got, either. You'll have to ask her."
"I will," she said, getting ready to leave the doujou. "And Ranma, I want you to keep your lips closed about this as long as you can. I think my college fund will get quite a boost if I can mill the Furinkan students as much as I can with it. Promise me or I won't help you."
Ranma raised an eyebrow. "And what can you help me with, Nabiki?"
"Otousan, of course. Or you want to break the news to father yourself, Ranma-kun?" she smirked.
Ranma paled at the prospect of facing a Gojira sized demon-head.
"I thought so. Do I have your word, Ranma?"
"On my honor, Nabiki. But you know it won't hold for long."
"Enough to me to make lots of money. I can't ask for more than that. Com'on, Ranma, let's go see my father."
---
The sun was going down and Hibiki Ryouga still laid in a hole of his own making. Literally. He did all the thinking he needed to, now it was the time to act.
It was funny, he didn't even have to move to know that his sense of direction was working properly now. He knew precisely where he was and, more importantly, which direction to take in order to reach Nerima, Akari's pig farm or even Jusenkyou if he was inclined to go there. It was even funnier to remember how difficult it was to him to leave the Nekohanten and the all the other times he got lost in small environments. He felt like he had been given a jigsaw puzzle to put together without all the pieces. Heck, he was missing half the pieces.
Knowing the way didn't mean it was easy to follow the right road. He was mortally afraid of how Akane would react when she finally learned the secret identity of her pet pig. It was bound to happen now that someone else had the curse, no longer a matter of if but one of when. He couldn't even blame Ranma for that. He did keep his word and never disclosed his secret, even if he tried to throw her hints from time to time. It was his own stupidity that exposed his most guarded secret, exactly in the hope of getting free of it.
He didn't appreciate the irony of it.
Still he had to go to Nerima. Akane may be in need of a friend right now. How to know what she had received in those thrice damned cards? He had to be sure she was safe. He owned her a explanation for his actions, even if she probably would mallet him into next week or worse. It was something he just had to do.
Perhaps, perhaps Akane would understand that it was all Ranma's fault.
But right now he needed to discover what ailed him and the urge to check out for another Jusenkyou's curse was great. He had lots of experience with it to know that he would get wet sooner or later and it was for the best to have hot water available immediately. It's was always a nightmare to gather wood and lit it in the wild with the hoofs of a small piglet.
Climbing out of the hole, he retrieved his large backpack and heated some water. It was with anxiousness that he doused himself with cold water and with dread he felt the familiar twinge as his body shifted into something else.
"QUACK!"
The task to move the hot kettle with the tip of his wings proved to be much difficult than he had thought and twice he almost wasted it on the ground, but in the end he managed to splash himself and recover his true form.
"MOUSSE! THIS IS YOUR FAULT!" he bellowed to the heavens.
Yes, he really didn't appreciate the irony of it.
Author's notes:
I would like to thank everyone who has sent me suggestions. I had the next chapter already written, but some were so good I have to mention them. One person suggested transforming Ryouga into a cat girl (Nyannichuan/Maoniichuan combo) *snicker*, another wanted Mousse to wish away his infatuation for Shampoo... to land on Akane (Aiyah, pervert girl no touch Shampoo there!). A good number of people wanted a duck with the buoyancy of a rock. Sesh, I thought I was mean...
Please review my story, it is greatly appreciated.
By Fangorn (3-VIII-2003)
fangorn_ff@terra.com.br