The next morning I woke up early and asked Akane to spar with me when she returned from her morning run. She readily agreed, and went to change into her gi. We both held back a lot but it was great fun. I used only normal martial arts, since I didn't want to expose the fact I'd learned Anything Goes when I started the Jump. She eventually worked up the nerve to ask me about my curse and how I was coping, and I did my best to put her worries at ease.
"It's complicated. I'd grown used to male hormones and had decades of experience controlling them, so everything feels just slightly off. My senses have changed a touch, and from what I can tell I'll have a monthly visitor. Ember promised to help me when it came to that. I just pity the poor boy who fell in the spring right before me. He looked about your age, and won't have as much life experience to help him cope or a female role model unless there was someone else lurking around that I failed to sense. It will probably impede his sexual development as well, since he'll essentially be going through two versions of puberty at once." Akane winced at that, and seemed relieved that I hadn't been offended or anything by her question.
"That's terrible! I'm sorry you have to go through that. It's hard enough just being a growing girl and going to school with a bunch of idiots, but to have to try and figure out both at once? I think I'd go insane!" She laughed, dodging several strikes and trying to push me into a corner where I had less room to dodge.
"Indeed. Becoming a man was a difficult time. I'm told becoming a woman is more difficult, but at least this time I have some form of maturity on my side, eh? I should anyway. I've lived something like sixty five or seventy years now. It's difficult to really put a number on it when you've been subjected to time-warping magic. Now what's this about going to school with a bunch of idiots?"
Akane's surprise allowed me to land a soft hit to her stomach, and I stepped back to wait for her to recover from the shock of what I'd said.
"You don't look a day over seventeen," she replied cheekily, and we both laughed. "There's this boy at school, Kuno Tatewaki. He took over a school even last week and told everyone in the auditorium that they had to beat me in a fight to get a date with me. I'm not even interested any of them, but a bunch of boys started attacking me every morning and they seem to think I'll do whatever they want if they win!" She was crying at the end, and my look was dark. I pulled her in for a hug, whispering that I'd speak to her father today and the school tomorrow. Such things were never acceptable. She stiffened at the contact at first, but between my being in female form and apparently being far older and more mature than her she relaxed into the hug and cried herself out.
-
The lock on the door to the bathing area turned out to be a good idea. The residents weren't used to having others around, and Akane tried to enter while I was bathing after our spar. I called out to her that I would be finished soon, and she said she'd be back later. When I left a few minutes later she was coming out of her room and looked a little embarrassed. I just gave her a reassuring smile and told her not to worry about it, then headed down to breakfast.
Kasumi's cooking was once again amazing, but I was starting to wonder if anyone else did any of it. Since I had an errand to run I decided I'd pick something up on the way home. If nobody wanted anything I could simply keep it in my inventory. Wasn't there still a bunch of pizza and cake in there? And a chicken. I kept forgetting to find a place for the chicken. Perfect memory did not mean perfect thinking, clearly.
With breakfast out of the way and a gesture from Ember to clean the dishes, I announced that I had something to speak to Soun about, and after that there were some errands I had to run. Kasumi looked stunned at the display of magic for such a task, and looked at Ember pleadingly. Ember turned to me, her expression asking if I really needed her for this trip. I shrugged slightly, and she turned back to Kasumi.
"Would you like some help, Miss Tendo? There's a spell for just about every chore, from cooking and dishes to washing and mending the clothes. If you have the talent I might even be able to teach you." Kasumi looked like she was going to cry in happiness, and I asked Soun to meet me in the dojo. When I described to him what was happening to his youngest daughter he looked furious, but learning a Kuno was behind it caused his shoulders to droop. He looked at me sadly.
"I knew she was having trouble, but I had no idea it was so serious. Unfortunately the Kuno family runs the school, and they're very rich besides. I might be able to dissuade some of the students, but there's nothing I can do about the boy himself," he said.
"Why don't we walk Akane to school tomorrow and speak to both the boys and whoever's in charge? I can be very persuasive, and as you saw from how I paid you I'm not without resources. It's Friday, so tomorrow should be a half day for her right? Or has my knowledge of the Japanese school system failed me?" I asked with a smile.
"That would be acceptable Miss Black. Furinkan does half Saturdays, but not all schools here do. Thank you for helping my daughter."
"That's perfectly alright, Mister Tendo, and please call me Wrin. When I return to male form you may call me Wren. I may look sixteen but I'm probably in my seventies by now, and I know something like this will only get worse if it's allowed to stand. No one should be victimized so, even if they have the strength to overcome it."
"Then you must call me Soun. Is miss alright when you're like this? Or should it always be mister?"
"Address me as you like, Soun. For the sake of appearance miss is probably preferable." I shrugged, and we both laughed a bit as we puzzled over pronouns. I'd been using a mix of English and Japanese since not all of the ideas I was trying to convey worked well in Japanese, but he seemed to understand me well enough. It was probably part of the weird Jump-Chain language thing Washu had told me about. The intended respect was conveyed properly, and I was getting a lot of feedback about the language.
Soun left the dojo to talk to Akane, and I began scrying. There were some artifacts I needed to find, and between Savant granting me perfect memory and having been obsessed with the series for a fair amount of time it shouldn't take me too long to both help myself and prevent some future problems by taking them. I was a little concerned about the morality of taking the Locking Ladle from the Musk, but the way they used it made me shudder and I couldn't help but justify it to myself as necessary for my own training. The only other questionable item was the Nanban mirror: it had been stolen from Ku Lon's people long ago by Happosai, the Grandmaster of the School of Anything Goes Martial Arts. I wasn't sure if I could bring myself to give it back, given how useful it could prove in the future.
My first destination was Mount Horai to retrieve the artifact needed to unlock my curse. The Kettle of Opening or Pot of Liberation, depending on the translation, was atop a very tall plateau and encased in a kettle-shaped fountain made from stone. It took all of three seconds to find it and only a few minutes to get it out of the fountain, during which I came into contact with water from the kettle itself.
[Quest Complete! Break the lock on your curse!]
[Quest Update! Take ALL the things!]
I took the time to repair the fountain so it looked like I hadn't been here before scrying for the next most important item on my list. People might visit for the scenery, after all. If they could climb the cliff and get through the forest of vicious poo-flinging monkeys. Come to think of it I probably could have left it looking broken. There was no sense in breaking it again though, so I moved on.
Next I was looking for the Wishing Sword that Kuno found in the series. Scrying revealed that it was at the head of a huge line of people, each of which was trying to pull it from a stone. I sighed, cast an illusion over myself to look like Hwan Sung-Gon, and teleported nearby. The line was really long, but moved pretty quickly. They charged me admission, too. The stone itself was only vaguely magical, and the sword's magic didn't seem bonded to it. I surreptitiously dispelled the magic on the stone as I approached, then easily removed the sword. After many congratulations I put the damn thing in my inventory and determined to ask Washu what I could get from it when I was done locating the rest of my shiny targets. I heard her snicker in my mind, which was actually becoming kind of comforting at this point.
[Quest Update! Take ALL the things!]
I had to be cautious with the next one. The Nanban mirror allowed the user to travel through time and space at the cost of a single shed tear, but it was also part of Happosai's collection of stolen magical items in the source material. Unleashing Happosai early was a risk I was willing to take, but would rather avoid. I scryed for it, and thanked Washu that it was in a cache hidden in the woods outside Tokyo. There were no sealed caves or ancient perverts in sight, so I retrieved the entire cache except for the lingerie. Happosai would happily murder anyone who destroyed any of his "silky darlings," but he might not even notice his other stuff was gone. The Ultimate Weakness moxibustion scrolls were there too, which saved me a lot of trouble.
[Quest Update! Take ALL the things!]
When I showed up to the Monkey Mountain Temple looking for the enchanted gi from the series one of the monks literally threw it at me. Then he threw a swivel chair and a wallet at me too, telling me to take the damn thing and never come back and I could have the rest as souvenirs.
[Quest Update! Take ALL the things!]
I was still hesitant to go after the last item on my list. If I took the ladle now then Prince Herb might never show up, and I would also be seriously interfering with the way their tribe lived. Did that really matter thought? If Herb never showed up Ranma didn't have to fight him, and if he did I intended for Ranma and myself to both be trained well enough to handle it. There was also the option of offering to return it or switching to lethal combat as a last resort. As for the way his people lived...I really couldn't condone turning random animals into women with the cursed springs then locking them into that form to be used as breeders. I activated the scry spell
Since I knew what I was looking for and roughly where it was but not much more, it took almost thirty seconds to find the artifact. The pail and ladle sat on a shelf surrounded by other mystical nonsense, but the room and the shelf both appeared to be unwarded and there was no one in sight. I teleported in, put the bucket and ladle in my inventory, made sure I'd left no physical or magical traces, and left.
[Quest Complete! Take ALL the things!]
[You've gained a level!]
Well, that was awesome. It'd been awhile since I gained a level. Was there anything else I could acquire easily? The Umisen-ken scrolls were at Ranma's mother's house and Kumon Ryu would have the Yamasen-ken. He was a douche in the original timeline, but also had a somewhat legitimate problem with Genma. I decided to try find him with scry, and when I did I saw he was being very manly.
No, not that. He was wrestling a bear. I'd never actually seen anyone do that before, and it looked as overly macho as it sounded. I still wanted to try it myself one day, just for fun. There was a scroll on Kumon's back and no other apparent supplies evident, so he probably had a camp nearby or some sort of hidden weapons trick like Mu Tsu.
Regardless, I waited patiently for Ryu to choke out the bear then teleported in roughly thirty meters away from him. He responded by slashing at the air in front of him with his hand, sending a vacuum blade at me. Rude. The manga had made these attacks look like waves of air, which was kind of misleading. There was barely a ripple indicate the pseudo-project visually, and it lit up oddly to my energy sense. I stepped out of the way and leveled my best irritated look at the young man. Looking like Sung-Gon, it should have been fairly effective.
"That was uncalled for."
"What? Who are you? Where did you come from and what do you want?"
"I've come to make you an offer for the scroll on your back," I told him, deliberately not answering the other questions. He raised an eyebrow, then started laughing when I failed to elaborate.
"You want the scroll? The thing that destroyed my home and killed the last of my family? Why exactly should I give it to you?"
"Because I'm prepared to offer you a pouch full of gold coins for it, which would go a long way toward rebuilding your home or buying a new one," I replied. At the mention of gold his posture suddenly changed, and he no longer appeared to be just humoring me. I reached into my pocket and conjured a bag much like the one I'd paid the Tendos with, and there was no negotiation after that. He took the gold, gave me the scroll, and dragged the unconscious bear off into the woods. Maybe he was hungry?
After teleporting back to the temple I scryed for the home of Saotome Nodoka of Japan, mother of Saotome Ranma and wife of Saotome Genma. Her home quickly swam into view, and I focused on locating the Umisen-Ken scroll within. Nodoka had done nothing to me, and even if her husband was an offensive cowardly child-abusing idiot taking the scroll would be harming the family rather than the man. It was destroyed in the series though, so making a copy shouldn't do any harm.
I could either go myself and basically invade someone's home, or I could see how far I could push [Scry]. If that didn't work I would either give up for now or actually ask to see the scroll. I was almost guaranteed a negative answer, but it was the polite thing to do. I should probably wait on that until I knew Ranma, actually. If could convince him to become my apprentice he could talk to his mother and ask for the scroll with the excuse he was training to overcome an ancient curse to excuse his lack of "manliness" imposed by said curse.
Attempting to scry on a rolled-up scroll and actually read the diagrams and text was incredibly frustrating. It took me several hours and a few creative uses of my ability to see outside the normal spectrum of light to copy the whole thing. The ink of the scroll reacted differently to ambient light and heat than the rest did, but discerning the differences and turning them into something I could copy was tedious enough that I was grinding my teeth within half an hour. Gamer's Body was going to save me a lot of money on dental visits.
When the copy was finally finished I received a prompt to learn the skill like I had with the Yamasen-Ken but declined it. These would need to be copied and preserved first. Even if I remembered them perfectly I wanted there to be another hard copy when I was done. [Conjuration] solved that problem, and testing revealed that both the copies gave me the prompt so I stored one copy and absorbed the other to learn it. My [Stealth] and [Mystical Energy (Concealment)] both shot up, and I was pleased.
[Quest Update! Learn ALL the things!]
[Remove Curse success! Jusenkyou curse (Spring of Drowned Girl) is broken!]
[Alternate form attained: Ranko!]
[Quest Complete! Break your curse early!]
Even better. The idle processes I'd left running with [Multi-Focus] had finished breaking the curse, I suddenly looked like Lina Inverse, and I now had a reliable alternate form as Ranko. I went back over the messages and cleared them, with [Dispel] now being at level 107, [Remove Curse] at 105, and [Shapeshift] at eighty-seven. There was a message that since I'd passed level fifty of shapeshift I could now create "buds" by forming living things attached to me then removing the connection, but that Washu had restricted that use of the skill in accordance with rule #10 since such things could technically be considered my children.
It was approaching dinner time, so I teleported to a store I'd seen when we were talking to the Tendo home and picked up a bunch of groceries for myself and Ember then a bunch of generic Japanese foodstuffs to help out the Tendos. The Amazons would have to feed themselves or accept whatever Kasumi made. It wasn't like I hadn't paid for it, after all. I shifted back into Ranko form in an alley and teleported back to the dojo, where I found Guinevere napping on the roof. That bird reminded me entirely too much of Fawkes, and for some reason my wife. They both seemed to love sleep, at least. That was probably it.
Dinner was amazing, and either Kasumi was amazingly talented for she had a latent talent for magic. She waved the dishes clean herself and clapped happily when it worked. Ember looked on proudly, and I smiled. Kasumi was awesome, and as Ember's apprentice she'd go far. I quietly deposited the groceries I'd bought for the house in the kitchen after I found where they went, then invited Ember up to our room and broke her Jusenkyou curse. She shifted to look like my current form with a mischievous smile, and put her hair up in a ponytail to differentiate between the two of us. I'd keep my hair down then, so people could tell us and Ranma apart just from that. The rest of the night was spent re-enchanting my remaining equipment with my new skill level and duplicating it for Ember. If we were going to be twins, we'd be good twins.
-
When we came down for breakfast the next day in identical Ranko forms and demonstrated we were no longer affected by water, Akane cheered and Soun and Kasumi both looked relieved. That was a bit less potential chaos around the house, if nothing else. I prompted Soun about Akane and he notified her we'd be walking with her to school to speak to the administration. If any boys bothered her they would answer to her father and a very annoyed mage. She looked both pleased and embarrassed, but that was to be expected of a teenager in an awkward situation.
The walk itself was fairly peaceful, with Soun and Akane discussing how she was doing in classes so far and what she thought of high school. I noted the medical practice of Ono Tofu on the way for future reference and shot a dark look at a gaunt boy going the same direction when I noticed him staring at Akane. He averted his eyes respectfully, and I wondered if he was Gosunkugi Hikaru from the series. If it was, perhaps his obsession would lessen with contact? I'd ask Akane later what she thought of him. It was her life and unless she asked I would try not to interfere too much after this. Making her aware of the boy would be enough.
When we arrived at the school the aptly-named Hentai Horde charged, only to stop dead when Soun used a ki technique to look like an oni and started yelling at people. They turned and fled why I levitated into the air and surrounded myself with an aura of fire. Akane looked on, speechless and red in the face, as the adults (even if I didn't look like one) shared a look and dropped the techniques before proceeding into the school toward the administrative office. She followed sedately, expression unreadable. A boy in a black hakama and blue top stood open-mouthed with a rose at his feet, watching as we entered the building.
The assistant principal seemed surprised to see us, which meant that either Soun hadn't called ahead or they hadn't believed he'd show up to follow through on whatever threats he'd made should his daughter be treated poorly. He tried to fob off responsibility on the absent principal Kuno, but neither of us allowed it. He was to call an assembly of the students involved, where we would address them. Any who acted in such a disgusting way toward Akane after that would be dealt with harshly or we would be back to press charges against both the individuals and the school itself. Akane would have been mortified if she'd stayed, but we'd sent her off to classes.
An announcement was made over the P.A. system and the assembly called. Soun spoke first, saying that as a member of the prefecture council he was both disappointed and disgusted that such behavior had been allowed. Both the council and the police would be involved if it continued. I declined to speak, citing that Soun had everything well in hand and my intimidation tactics from earlier would get through to anyone without common sense. I'd walk Akane to school for a few weeks, at least. In the audience surrounded by her friends, Akane's face burned red but she smiled nonetheless. She and two of her friends, Yuka and Sayuri, stayed behind to thank us and introduce themselves.
My demonstration of magic had apparently spread through the school on wings of rumor at near the speed of light, and they were very curious. I conjured a bit of water and demonstrated hydrokinesis for a few minutes before the nervous-looking assistant principal came up to usher them off to classes. He spoke to Soun and I a bit more, apologizing for his reluctance to act and explaining that until we threatened to get the law involved he'd had very little opportunity to straighten out the delinquent behavior of the Kuno scion due to his influence. If the father ever tried to take him to task for the incident he could now truthfully say he was protecting Kuno interests by keeping the law out of it. Soun and I were both unhappy with the explanation, but understood. He left for home, and I left to check on Ryoga.
Behind us rumors circulated of the "Red Witch" that had accompanied Soun Tendo, and Kuno was very conflicted. His hormones said one thing, while his very-much below-average common sense told him the opposite. Guinevere watched me walk away from the school, and silently took wing to follow.