Ranma Aqua-Isekai'd, by Chaos Orchid
Chapter 20: Ranma's Extra Powers
Ranma had a bottomless pit for a stomach, but she had gotten enough food to think she had had a decent enough meal. To her annoyance, a certain green-haired girl was also sort-of satisfied with her breakfast, too. It told her she could become less hungry by Instant-changing into a girl. It could become a temptation if she didn't remain determined to continue face that hardship she had known all of His life. Pop could have been right. Girls were soft. Just pinching the small body he was in now reminded him of that. (If girls don't need to eat as much, why do they have so much pudge? Especially in their boobs and-)
"Hey! Fingers off the butt!" the redhead yelled at Sweetie, slapping them away.
"I really admire the drowned redhead's body," the preteen smiled sincerely, patting the butt with the other hand. "Now Eyeshadow has a twin sister again! I was so sad when Manicure became trapped as an ugly male."
Xiū zhǐjiǎ? Did she really hear 'Manicure'? It couldn't be, right? Ranma would only be sure once she had seen how it was written. That was the way it worked in both Japanese and Chinese. With so many homophones, the same word or name could be kanji'd in many different ways. In fact, in Japanese, they didn't even have to sound the same to be written the same way. Take, for example, Hiroshi and Daisuke-
Wait! Just because she could magically understand the language now, did that also mean she could magically read it, too?! Or was she just assuming their Chinese characters meant the same as her Japanese kanji?
"I was told I could get the credentials from you, jūn-Sweetie" the grocer said, walking up to them.
Ranma had to grimace: 'jūn-' seemed to mean something like '-sama' in this dialect. In other words, the pipsqueak outranked her by a wide margin.
The man presented her with an inkpad. She put her little finger on it and then imprinted his bill. Ranma was disappointed when she took out a seal and stamped over it. She was going to have to get a signet, too. Maybe a ring? But when it came to the writing on the bill, she was still not sure of her reading comprehension. The handwriting wasn't good. It made her question how well their credential system actually worked.
"How do creds work? I'm gonna have to know if I'm gonna be usin' them."
"We really do need to get Nylon to her medicine."
"But as long as the Instant stuff don't get washed off of her, she won't turn into the monster, right?"
"But she's still itching from it. She could scratch her lovely skin raw! Carry me back to the Village and I'll tell you along the way."
"No way! I'll get the…"
One of the three women they had first met by the fountain nervously came up to Sweetie. "Um, the kids have caused us extra expenses this week. Could you give us a tip?" This bill had better hand writing and Ranma could read most of it. They were the ones that looked most like the kanji she already knew. If they didn't know them, she had to struggle a moment before she could hope to understand the characters. Just like when she read Japanese, only a little better. No real learning seemed to be required. Maybe?
After having her bill credited, the pregnant woman bowed. "Thank you, jūn-Sweetie!"
"I'm sorry for you trouble, Manicure."
"Huh!? Manicure! She's also got the same curse as me(!)?!" It was the one doing the washing! The one with the lousy roommate! And one with at least one of those five kids!
Ranma studied her and was relieved that he couldn't see anything that really looked like Eyeshadow (and her cursed body) in the woman with the bright bronze hair.
Manicure thought she understood what the redhead was thinking. "My other half, the one in the world we both came from, decided he'd rather be a woman and found a way to stay one. He was me, so I guess I would have done it to him if I could have. But then the bastard died. Her curse can't be unlocked for me to use. Now this…," and she swished a hand in the still dosed fountain, "...is the only way I can be a woman."
"Very unlucky for her," Sweetie said, sympathetically. It melted when she rubbed Ranma's butt. "But lucky for you!"
Ranma grabbed her wrist, now. "How is it lucky for me?" she wasn't going to be suckered into believing it. She didn't trust the infamous mischief-maker.
"Gramma can explain it better. But it means Manicure is very important now."
"She's not gonna became another 'fiancee'(?)" Ranma frowned, letting go.
"Only if you want her to be. You could become a step-daddy!" Sweetie laughed teasingly.
"No thank you." From her brief time babysitting the five kids, she could only think she could end up as bad of a dad as Pop. He was, after all, his only long-term example. And she had no memories of Mom.
"You're not going to ask why Manicure is important to you?"
"No!"
"I'd like to know!" Manicure asked. "I'd like to be known as something other than just a Real Hero."
"As long as you're alive, Manicure, your cursed body still sort-of lives. It's in-between That-side and This-side."
Ranma thought she had, may be, could have, seen something like bodies floating in a bright nothingness in the dream she had last night. And there had been something about locking out a curse in it, too. If she could only remember the dream clearly!
"That redhead can act as a battery."
"Battery? An energy source?" Ranma found herself becoming interested. "Not that I really understand how they work, but don't they…uh, something about layers and positive and negative and-Aarr! I really don't understand!"
"The layers are the two worlds and what's between them." Like any know-it-all kid, she was confident she was right, even if she were wrong.
"Manicure's redhead is in the layer where the magic is!? And 'cuz she has the same curse, she's linked to me like Eyeshadow is!? That sounds like she's the Chaos Seed!"
Sweetie's eyes went wide. Revelation! "You're Right!" she cried, striking her palm in the eureka moment. "Manicure's redhead is the Chaos Seed!"
"You couldn't figure that out!?(!) Grandma Beautiful-Chick Cologne's suppose to be the all-wise witch that knows things like that!"
"It's not her fault!" Sweetie threw herself against Ranma and got a couple of hits to her boobs before her arms were grabbed. "It's not her fault." Tears began flowing. "Gramma's not getting any older." Then she outright bawled. "Just like me!"
Despite herself, Ranma felt sorry for the little kid who was no longer a pain. When the preteen slumped towards the ground, Ranma lifted her up in her arms. Sweetie buried her face in a shoulder and tried to stop her crying fit. "Everybody dies. People die all the time on This-side. I'm not special, even though Gramma made me special…."
"What's the story?" Ranma quietly asked Manicure.
"If Elder-Cologne and Sweetie do not take Mushrooms of Time soon, they'll die."
"What? They're anecdotes to poison mushrooms?"
"They keep you at one age until you reach that age. Eat one that would make you older and you're past the age where you should die, so you die. You can only keep on living by eating a mushroom that will make you younger."
"...And, then, you die when you reach that age?" Ranma received a nod. "Eat more of them and you keep gettin' younger and younger, until…."
Manicure rubbed Sweetie's shoulder. "Falcons only live for about 15 years."
"What!? She's not a cursed human, but really a falcon?!"
"She was supposed to be one of the Phoenix People. But…." Manicure turned away. "Come children, time to return home."
"But what?! How?!"
"I will not speak ill of Elder-Cologne. She meant well."
"But it's Cologne's guilt that has allowed the falcon-girl to remain a pest." It was Hér, the head guard on duty at the town gate near the fountain.
"Curses, maybe I can understand. But turning a, a…" How could she describe a Phoenixite? Feathered humans with bird feet and bird feet for hands? Still they were mostly human-looking. How could one of those be turned into an all-bird but who could also become an all-human?
"Only Cologne and her daughter, Rinse, know the details," Hér said. "But it all started when one of the Phoenixites tried to spy on us disguised as Rinse."
Ranma still didn't understand. But she could feel what Sweetie was overhearing was upsetting her even more. Now more asking. She hugged her closer to her, closer to he bosom, and gently shook and patted her. "I'll take you home." Damn, if she didn't get her to carry her.
"Nylon wouldn't wait. Eyeshadow and a couple of my troops went to escort her back to the Village. They have a waterskin full of fountain water in it. They'll use it if the Instant Nyannicuan washes off."
"Where's Ryōga?"
"Huh…. We lost sight of him."
"Man! If there's one thing he's an expert at is gettin' lost!"
Sweetie pushed against Ranma, trying to be let go. "I'll find him! I just need some hot water!"
"And what about the Guardian Cloud up there?" Ranma nodded to it. It did look like it was growing more away from the mountain top it liked to hug. "It'll rain on you 'cuz it's got no reason not to! The lightning could electrocute you!"
She pushed even harder, adding kicking motions. "We've all got to die sometime!"
"But not today!" The redhead told her. Giving her something to do was a better idea than letting her get depressed about her future. "Here! I'm swinging you up onto my shoulders! We're takin' to the sky my way!"
When she was on, Ranma asked, "You gonna tell them I can get up on your wall?"
Hér thought about it before giving the signal to her guards. Ranma had leaped before she was finished.
"You know the town better 'n me, Sweetie; I'll look outside the wall!"
"I'd have better sight if I was a falcon!"
"My sight's almost too good as a girl!" Ranma said. It was true. The colors were so much more vivid and distracting. There was a reason why some of the best hunters were colorblind.
And what's more, the different shades seemed to be loosely tied to an emotion. Not like smells, which were strongly tied. Had she heard somewhere that most women are better at knowing landmarks? Knowing where things were, not where they could be? Maybe she was wrong.
If she was, those female skills weren't helping her now. Ha! She knew somebody who didn't have those skills. She could believe Ryōga was colorblind. He must be great at hunting; how else could he track her all the way to here, in the middle of Nowhere China? But he definitely never knows where he is. No sense of homeground. And not having enough female yin to balance his male yang could explain his anger issues and pigheadedness: Too much testosterone!
"What the-" She had let her mind wonder, and while not looking for him, she found him!
"I'm holdin' onto your arms, Sweetie! Get ready: I'm gonna jump!"
"I'm ready! Go! Go!" Being a falcon, she had no fear of heights and she trusted Ranma-or maybe almost wished to get death over with-she had no problem with the three story jump!
She hit the ground running. "He don't like to be called "Lost Boy", but he's not headed to the town we can see but towards the mountains!"
"He has to be stopped before he gets to them! He might be captured by the Musk, then!"
"The Musk?"
"They're not as bad as the Phoenix People, but they're bad! There used to be a lot of strange wild animals lose around here because of them. Real animals, not people cursed to be animals. The animals people are cursed to be are mostly those animals of theirs. But that was done by the Musk on That-side, mostly centuries ago. Some animals show up because of them, though. We thought the black pig might may have been one."
"You mean Ryōga."
"It's because he changes into a pig the Musk might want him. We have to guard guard Animal Town from them."
"The Jusenkyo onsen, the Real Heroes and the cursed animal people! And more, too? You sure you have enough Women Heroes?"
"No! And that's why you're so important to us! And you give us Eyeshadow, too!"
"I'm important?" Of course Ranma knew that's what Cologne and the others thought. But the sincerity in the kid she had let her guard down to touched her. People thought she was important. Here, now, not in the future Pop kept training him for. A future that seemed never to get closer. Training was the only thing on the Old Man's mind! He was never given a clear reason why. Why?! Here was a why. It wasn't the best why, but…
Here, for the moment, in the moment, she had a WHY!
She ran up a low hill and leaped off of it. And soared! "Hey! Ryōga! Lost Boy!"
"Don't call me-Aaa~!" He cried as he saw her coming at him feet first!
Feeling special, showing off, Rana sprung off his fists, pivoted, let go of Sweetie's arms long enough to place her hands on top of the black-haired boy's head and was holding onto the kid's arms again by the time her legs slid down his front. Her soft, female butt plopped down on top of his shoulders, her belly against the back of his head. She was now riding him the same way as the kid was riding her. Sweetie was sitting on her and she was sitting on Ryōga and his knees bowed under weights he hadn't been prepared to have to carry. "Show how strong you are!"
"Get off of me!-Ow!"
"I know how stubborn you can be! That was just remindin' you of the damage I can give you if you try hittin' on what you can reach on me. Now, get goin'! We're gonna make sure you don't get lost!"
"Ge,get off, of me…"
"If we do, will you go with us or-Blood!" Ranma had forgotten the effect the feel of a woman's body had on the guy. Instead of having to get off of him, he got out from under them. He lost consciousness once again. And for the same reason.
"Well, so much for him faintin' because he had been a girl."
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NOTES:
I apologize. This chapter is another case of information overload. But unlike Rumiko-sama, I do not have years of series time to wait to until I can give individual parts of the story their own proper narration. More will be said on the items mentioned here in later chapters.
The Credential "Cred" System. Most get around it using barter. The creds are usually only used to get things that have to be rationed. This is in the remote "Roof of the World", 4000 meters above sea level. It is difficult to grow things here and it is difficult to not only trade with the rest of the world, there aren't many people in(!) the rest of the world! People have only been living on This-side for about 3,000 years. More on that later.
Cologne really is younger than the Cologne the other Ranma will come to know! The young Elder's constantly delayed death-sentence is because the Cologne that's Shampoo's great-grandmother had eaten a Mushroom of Time herself. It makes her 300-years old for 300 years. The Cologne on This-side found out but couldn't find a mushroom 300 centimeters long. That's nearly 10 feet long! Let's just say the other Cologne cheated, probably using something like Demon's Own Fertilizer to make the fungus tree-sized. (Nothing in the rules said she had to eat the whole thing, is ? Or all at once?)
More will be written on how Sweetie became a falcon instead of one of the Phoenix People in another chapter. But those who know of the Spring of Drowned Akane can get the idea of how it all began.