Ranma Aqua-Isekai'd, by Chaos Orchid
Chapter 3: More Than Marriage Threatens
Nylon snorted like the bull he could be replaced by. But Ranma thought he could agree with the bull-headed guy. The only way he was willing to die was in battle for a just cause. But, then, what if life gave him no battles? He had no answer. His life hadn't been like that.
A large part of his life had been about his stomach. The last thing he had eaten was a snake and roadkill before that. (Here's a thought he had to-had to!-push out of his head, What if they had been like the animals in this town?) "What's keepin' the rat…Lady."
The woman was still naked. And he had a surge of teenage hormones. His training told him how to fight back against them. It helped that his mind was mainly on his empty stomach.
The slender woman contrasted with the small, squat nutria she had supposedly been. (It was contrast too big for the male in him to accept.) She brought her case of raman bricks out and set them down on the counter. Taking the third brick for Prune's order, she dropped it in the steaming, aromatic pot and stirred it in with a ladle.
"I'll have a bowl of ramen, too!" Nylon told her.
"Of course, you do. You always do," she frowned. And she ladled out the broth with ramen, beans and sliced vegetables into a bowl.
She then hurried from around her counter and, with no concern about public nudity, took the order out of the door to him.
"Hey! No fair! We were here first!" Ranma complained.
"Mĭsō want fill his belly before he change to Ox-crane-eel-man," Prune told him. "Is cheaper. That belly very big!"
"What? He gets freebies cuz he can become a monster?" While he was thinking whether he could get hold of a packet of instant monster, Ranma's mind fell onto something more interesting. He had seen her front, now he could see her backside. He did several seconds of seeing.
Realizing they might think he was a pervert, he turned away (but the image lingered in his mind). "Why don't she use her clothes-space and put something on?'
"Only heroes have honor of weapon-space," his female guide to This-side informed him.
"Honored? I'm honored?" They have weapons-control, but he's allowed to have them? Even though he's a stranger to them? Oh! The stronger your opponent, the stronger you become! Even if you lose, you learn! That's also the Saotome training technique! And it hasn't killed him yet.
"You on trial. Your father, too. Fail test, lose face, and they take away weapon-space."
"They? Yeah, there's always gotta be a They, don't there. Is it this elder you keep talkin' about the one who's gonna judges us?" His face lit up when his bowl of ramen was placed before him.
"Elder Cologne is Judge of Judges. But they almost not ever out-vote her." Prune took his bowl and lowered herself to the ground. (Sitting with her legs spread, male style.)
There were no chairs and since this was a village full of animals, Ranma figured it was the most practical way to eat here. He, too, sat on the packed-earth floor. (Also male-style.) "If the tests are martial arts, I'll pass," he said confidently.
"I can challenge you, Boy!" Nylon said as if he swearing to. "It's not just women who can step onto the Log of Judgment."
"In Village of Woman Heroes, only when on date can man stand on Log of Judgment," Prune reminded the twenty-something.
"On a date!? Dates are for fightin' to them(!)?!" Ranma stopped eating.
"Man what defeat woman must marry woman." The purple-haired woman slurped her noodles undaintily.
"Hey!" Ranma was on his feet instantly. "If I hafta be on the log-thing, I can't win even when I win! The fight's fixed!"
"Law of Woman Heroes say When fight on Log of Judgment, she must divorce him after three day. That her Time of Judgment."
"Divorce is easy with them? Then I'll divorce as soon as I win!"
"Ha!" Nylon laughed without humor. "Their laws are made by the women. A man can't divorce!"
"No fair! I'll, I'll win but I won't sign the marriage registry!"
"Their law. Only the woman has to sign it." The twenty-plus man in pants and chain metal vest seemed to be getting morbid pleasure tormenting Ranma with his looming fate.
"I know! I'm make a rotten husband! I know just how to do it, too! I'll just be like my Old Man! No one'll wanna be my wife!" (Not even Ranma's mom, he believed.)
"Then you won't get a divorce." The abrasive sensei was leaning against the doorjamb with a grim smile.
"What!? How does that make sense(!)?!"
"She'll keep you as a pet or a slave. As a 'Woman Hero" it's her challenge to tame you one way or another. Or kill you."
"I'll do the Saotome Special Technique!"
"Oh, Sir, you cannot run. Cannot get away. If that what that mean." Prune seemed sympathetic.
"And why not!?"
As both their lucks would have it, Nylon disappeared and in an instant was replaced by the giant bull-man with wings. He was now unable to taunt Ranma any more, but the message was clear to the martial artists. Not only could this thing fly but so could the falcon he had seen and they probably had other smart birds (Phoenix people?). Not to mention the fast, ground animals like the horse, dog (and leopards!? Did they have leopards and cheetahs and other cats who would attack him!?). But all of the animals had at least one sense even his training hadn't given him yet.
Ranma drained his bowl in one gulp. Swallowing, he swore, "I'll find a way not to be a husband. I'll fight off a zoo if I hafta!"
Ranma asked how he could get more food. He'd need a lot more to level up his energy for the fight of his single-life. Sure, he had all that power from the crystal, but that seemed to be dedicated to his weapon-space. It did, after all, had to take a lot to get stuff to come out of nowhere.
"You get feast when we get there," Prune promised as she carried a bowl of ramen out to Pop.
"And how long's that gonna take!? I'm still hungry!" He looked around at the animals on the street around him. On his ten-year training journey, he had eaten just about every kind of them.
But, "I lost my appetite." They all were acting too much like humans trapped inside the animals. (Not that he believed they were once people. No, he wouldn't!)
He couldn't say the same for his pop, though. The man was drooling as he gazed at them.
Suddenly a loud, angry, grunting squeal charged down the street towards them. Both the women guards animal guards moved out of its way, while the furry giant ox-man-etc. just squatted. They all watched the show. And who did the little, black pig with the yellow bandanna attack? Not the man who most wanted to eat it.
First distracted, then startled, Ranma's guard was down far enough for the porker to leave one-two hoof-prints in his face! It then dropped and leaped up at him again. But Ranma's arm blocked it. And was bitten! "Hey! That ain't martial arts, you swine!" And he grabbed it like he did with baseballs and tossed it for the bleachers!
The winged ox-man flew after it at once in a wordless brag of his skills. It was not only strong, it was fast. Fast enough to pass the tumbling furball and catch it. Though not gently.
Ranma turned to Shé, the commander of the mixed species guarding him and Pop. "I didn't do nothing to it! You were with me! Tell 'em, Prune!"
"To find out what his complaint is, we'll need somebody who can do sign language." And Shé signaled to the animal guards to their rear to send somebody forward.
The monster dropped the piglet in the middle of the group of guards and their "guests". Where it shook it's head, slightly stunned by the impact.
[Tell us who you are and what—] The dash appeared on the sign the moment the pig attacked not Ranma but the panda. It was its turn to fight off the enraged animal!
But not for long. Ropes went out from those that shibari-ahem-covered Shé to wrap themselves around the beast. Every time it attempted to escape the trap-and return to attacking the panda, Ranma, and, then, whoever-Shé flicked a wrist or wiggled her ropes in just the right way to encircle it again. In the end, Shé won. But only because the pig had become hopelessly entangled. Shé was going to have to bring in her skills with knots to free him.
Him? Both Chinese nor Japanese had no he/she pronouns, but the women guards had noticed the pig's sex. "Of course, it is male. He is a violent troublemaker."
Its fur tousled severely and a patch missing from its mask, the panda was given leave. Fox took over the interrogation. It gave up after 9 wooden signs. All in classical hanzi ideographs.
"How do they expect the pig to sign back when it can't use its hooves?" Ranma asked fellow onlooker, Prune.
"Same as they, practice. Talk with mouth full common."
Fox's last sign was aimed at Shé. [It may be a real pig]
"Does that mean we can eat it?!" Pop grinned, his eyes as big as dinner plates.
"We must take him with our guests," Shé said as she stared at it as its black-furred body dangled from the end of her rope. "Is possible he, too, is Cursed of Jusenkyo."
The pig's Bwee! Bwee! got higher and more lively, but if it tried to nod it head, the ropes did not allow it.
Shé tossed the ball of pig into Pop's hands. He drooled. But she told him, "Make use of self. Keep safe! What happen to him, happen to you!" she threatened.
"Oh, I'll make sure he he doesn't get away," he said, smiling at the small thing.
*Chomp!* The rope around the pig didn't act like a gag.
"Ow!" Pop pulled his hand free of its teeth and then spun it around on the line of rope his other hand had, meaning to bash it against the ground.
Before that happened, though, it was him tussed up in a ball and on the ground. And the ball of pig bounced off of him and landed beside him.
"I give you trial!" Shé stomped down on him.
"I coulda told you Pop ain't of much use," Ranma said, his hands casually behind his head.
Shé menaced Pop with, "You bite it, I bite you with bear trap!"
Shé picked up the loose end of the pig's rope and swung the animal up by it until the line went over her shoulder and the pig was bumping against the rope and the flesh of her back, centimeters above her rope-thonged butt.
The pig calmed down by passing out by the loss of blood through its nose.
"It got blood all over ya!" Ranma saw, glad that his training gave him more control over the flow of his blood.
"I Woman Hero warrior! I have blood on me before." And she continued to casually carry the animal like Ranma had seen normal women holding a purse fall behind their backs while holding onto its strap.
Meanwhile, the biggest of the women guards, Powder, was rolling Pop along on the ground as if he were just a large ball. "No, please! Let me out of this bondage! I'll be good! Word of honor!"
"Aw, don't trust that," Ranma said. "Hey, you want me to do that? I'll push him all the way to the Great Wall if 'n ya want me to."
"Traitor!" Pop yelled when he wasn't groaning, hissing and whining from the attack of sharp, loose stones on the road.
"Better you 'n me. I don't wanna be in rope handcuffs and a leash. You, too, right, Prune?"
"I no mind." But the woman with purple hair saw that Shé who must be obeyed thought was giving the teen boy another Trial of Character. Well, Shé did have Nylon and everybody else to keep an eye on him.
And everybody else included the little, redhead, Eyeshadow. The young girl had been quiet until now, taking her responsibility seriously, knowing her superiors were judging her performance. (And the other three women were all her sensei.) But the antics that had just happened had entertained them and lowered the guards' guard. They felt confident they could handle the strangers. (They still didn't know they were of the Anything-Goes School, after all.)
And now that she was more relaxed, she chose to relax near the ponytailed young man. She particularly like to watch the play of the muscles she could see in his sleeveless arms. And he was wearing a Chinese tang outfit in a kung fu-style. Her own clothes were in a similar style, though more feminine. They weren't tight but were snug enough for her busty figure to be seen, with its sleeves and legs coming down just below her elbows and knees. Hoping he would notice her, she began walking just ahead of him so she could keep in his field of view. Not knowing what kind of view he preferred, she would sometimes walk backwards, and other times let him see her backside.
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NOTES:
Despite seeing animals being replaced by people, Ranma remained skeptical. After all, though he was told, there was been no evidence yet that he, too, was cursed. They could have been animals before they were people. As for Prune, he met 'her' at the height of his disbelief. He held onto that.
Ranma viewed sex as a Little Death, a weakening even loss of readiness, control, consciousness, etc. When he did it, he wanted to 'die' for a 'Just Cause'. Genma really had conditioned him to be the opposite of Happosai, hadn't he?
Any real difference between between the Law of Women Heroes of This-side and the one of the Cologne and Shampoo we know on That-side was because of the disconnect between the two realities. And one of the biggest differences is China's population-size on This-side.
Of course Ryōga got lost and wet again soon after nearly being boiled in the Jusenkyo hut.