The next two weeks were quiet. It was almost like the series hadn't really started yet. The Amazons found a business lot to rent and moved out, so I talked to Nabiki and we got the ten year agreement signed instead of the old five year arrangement. Ryoga got home just fine and found a lot of letters from his parents, but no sign they themselves had been there. His dog was happy to see him at least, though I have no idea how it was alive unless they had some sort of industrial sized automatic food and water dishes. The house must have smelled awful. Or they had a dog door and the yard smelled awful. The Tendos went out to visit the grave of Soun's wife and the sisters' mother, leaving me and Ember alone in the house for the first time in a show of trust.
Deciding a good deed wouldn't go amiss on a day of mourning, we utilized the Homemaking Skills perk to prepare a meal and do the non-personal chores while they were away, then went about practicing on our own. I created an instant dungeon of the Tendo property and sat down with [Elemental Bending] to improve my physical and cold resistance, [Holy] to heal me from any damage I took, [Haste] to waste mana and grind the skill, [Mystical Energy (Generator)] to make up for said mana, [Flight] to hover and gain additional levels, [Illusion] to create independent copies of me moving around doing different kata, [Impart Knowledge / Tutor] (combined Pokémon psychic skill and Tutor Gamer skill) to start teaching Ember [Multi-Focus], [Transmutation] to start learning how to change other things around rather than just myself, [Mystical Energy (Mastery)] via the leaf-sticking exercise, and [Shapeshift] because I wanted to be a damn dragon! No, not a Ranma ½ dragon. A Dungeons and Dragons style gold dragon.
It was going to take a while, given how little progress I was making just getting magic-resistant golden scales without slipping into other techniques. Since I was using all the free effort granted by [Multi-Focus] that was gaining experience as well. Ember picked up the basics of [Multi-Focus] pretty quickly, and started healing herself and hitting herself with levitated objects to gain the [Physical Endurance] skill while listening to me talk about more techniques. After [Multi-Focus] I switched over to teaching her [Shapeshift], then [Illusion] when she got that one almost immediately. When she got bored we practiced the [Umisen-Ken] against each other in a very odd variant of Marco Polo, which ended up granting Ember [Mystical Energy (Sense)] and [Mystical Energy (Efficiency)].
The days Akane had school I would walk her there in Ranko form, usually having to glare or otherwise intimidate Gosunkugi, Kuno, or both. Given the fact I could literally conjure gold I didn't bother getting a job, but I did borrow a few books from Dr. Tofu and lend him some of mine. His texts on pressure points and moxibustion were especially informative. The Tendos themselves opened up a bit and became more accustomed to magic.
Ember negotiated with Soun for us to be taught the Tendo branch of Anything Goes since she was teaching Kasumi magic. We hoped that would eventually lead to us acquiring the Tendo ki-weapon manifestation technique and get Soun off his ass about teaching at the same time. Being on the council wasn't a full time job and didn't pay much.
We knew they'd been having financial trouble both because of the conversation I overheard and because things around the house suddenly started getting better when Soun found a museum to buy the coins. I hadn't been thinking about it at the time, but I'd unconsciously added some ancient Greek iconography to them I'd seen in The Gamer universe and people were freaking out because they were the heaviest most pristine gold coins ever found from that place and time. Three ounces was a lot more gold than most ancient coins used, and I'd conjured them that way because it was what it said in an old Dungeons and Dragons book. I kind of wondered what would happen if they ever tried to carbon date them or test for purity, since I'd conjured actual pure gold. Even in my home world in 2017 nobody had ever seen 100% pure gold, and this was 1989.
"I fixed it for you both times, but you really should watch out for these things," Washu's voice sounded in my mind. "Three ounces? Really? If I'd left them pure gold with no discernable aging you'd have turned the jump into a crime drama instead of just confusing a bunch of archeologists!"
Oh. Well that was...less than ideal. I wondered again at just how awesome it was to have a helpful Jump-Chan, and sent a hearty thanks back to Washu. I received telepathic gloating from her shoulder puppets in return, which was disconcerting. Moving on.
Akane was coming along nicely in her spars with me. I was still using only real-world martial arts, but I'd been slowly increasing the speed and strength with which I fought to let her adjust. Given that she was an Anything Goes practitioner, she'd also started to integrate some of my own moves into her style. It was a beautiful thing to watch. The Tendo Akane of the anime could have easily come across as a bipolar violent nutcase who was more often than not angry at the world. While the Akane of the manga was less violent toward Ranma and less liberal with the mallet, she still wasn't happy very often.
The girl I practiced with was thrilled to have an experienced partner to practice with who didn't have any interest in anything but friendship and mutual improvement. Her father hadn't actively taught her in years, so the few tips about adjusting her stance now that she was older lit up her face with happiness. The progress she was making was supernaturally fast by the standards of my first life.
When we talked about things other than martial arts Akane especially seemed to be interested in gender identity issues and what it was like to be one or the other. It didn't seem like a personal thing to me; more like curiosity, but it was hard to tell. She did give me and Ember appreciative looks when we used the Ranko form, but she also eyed Ember in male form. Hormones were weird, and aside from talking to her when she wanted it I was going to try and stay away from Akane's.
The whole "romantic and even sexual relationships are encouraged" thing was kind of worrying me, actually. I'd been living like a monk as it were since I started the Jump-Chain, and the older I got mentally the less sure I was about starting any sort of relationship. I knew I'd have to get over it eventually. Both Ember and Washu teased me when they caught me looking at someone like that, but thankfully only in private or when it wouldn't cause me to visibly react to the joke. They both thought I needed to get laid, and while I didn't disagree with the idea I had violent objections to the practice. Washu reminded me I'd likely be at this for at least a couple hundred years, more likely in the thousands, and I wept a little inside. I didn't want to be a dirty old man/shapeshifter! No I did not want to know what the age of consent was in 1980s Japan! This problem would actually stick with me for quite a while. Even Guinevere started to notice and kind of draw my attention to attractive young women, and I still couldn't figure out what was going on there.
Ember and I settled into a routine. In the morning I would help Kasumi with the cooking, then Ember would help her clean up with magic and teach her additional shortcuts and spells to do chores until they were finished. I'd walk Akane (and Nabiki, since she was no longer leaving early to run a gambling ring) to school while they cleaned up. If anyone bothered the girls on the way into the building they'd meet the "Red Witch." If that kept up I'd probably earn another title soon. With the school day settled I'd teleport back to the Tendo Dojo and practice with Ember and Soun when he was available and willing. We were both picking up the Tendo family art quickly (or I was pretending to, but adding techniques I didn't know as we went) and would practice on our own when he wasn't.
I picked up the Yamasen-Ken and started working on it in instant dungeons, which reminded me of the destruction that plagued the Tendo household after the Saotome family showed up. Studying a bit more on Harry Potter wards, their method of making things unbreakable, and cushioning spells allowed me to slowly ward the entire Tendo property to significantly soften blows against surfaces and make them unbreakable at the same time. There were common household wards in there to deter pests (I added cats to the list of pests, even though I loved the critters in my first life) and fire damage too, but they hardly used any power at all. The wards themselves were anchored to both the home and to conjured blocks of granite I sunk beneath the property to make them more resistant to dispelling magic. For power I anchored a bunch of energy gathering and generating effects to the stones since the ley-lines in the area weren't conveniently located. This had the side effect of becoming an ad-hoc air conditioner, since the energy gathering mechanisms considered anything above about 21 degrees celsius (about 70 degrees fahrenheit) to be excess energy.
-
Tendo Kasumi seemed exceptionally pleased with the changes to the household brought about by our arrival. Between learning magic, receiving help with the chores, Akane calming down, and Nabiki stopping most (but not all) of her illicit money-gathering activities the smile on her face was always bright, sunny, and sincere. I'd always gotten the impression from the manga and anime that she was barely holding onto sanity by her fingernails, and while I couldn't be sure if that had been the case prior to our arrival she seemed to be very content now. She'd started talking about going to college and possibly medical school, and had visited Doctor Ono Tofu quite a few times. Her smile was a little brittle after those visits, and twelve days into our stay I heard her crying on the couch when I came back from some errands.
There didn't seem to be anyone else in the house at the time, so I sat down beside her and asked if she wanted to talk about it. A teary confession of love for the doctor was followed by an explanation of how he always got very nervous and started to act very strangely whenever he noticed her. She'd seen him from afar and he always seemed very kind and composed, but whenever she tried to talk to him or even just approach him he went insane. I did my best to console her, saying she would find someone who could appreciate her without acting like an idiot and offering to talk to the doctor on her behalf. She brightened a little at that, but I couldn't help thinking this was more of a long-term crush than anything else. It also brought to mind my own romantic troubles, since Tofu was thirty-four and Kasumi was nineteen. Guinevere glided into the room and began to sing a soothing song, which actually put Kasumi to sleep.
I dried her tears with a cosmetic spell and conjured a blanket over her, then let her slump down onto the couch from her position sleeping against my shoulder. I still wasn't terribly well versed in Japanese culture, but a breakdown like that in any culture implied significant emotional turmoil. The fact that she'd been willing to talk to me about it was also telling. I left Guinevere singing softly to Kasumi and went to visit the clinic, where a few patients were actually waiting outside looking slightly alarmed.
When I entered I found Tofu dancing around with a replica skeleton and generally being a danger to everyone around him. I approached cautiously and mimed tapping a pressure point for sleep that I'd read about, but actually used a spell to induce the effect. It was easier for me to control that way. After storing him in the office I glanced at the patients and sighed before conjuring a lab coat and asking Washu for a favor. A variety of certifications and educational records were updated in accordance with my Medical Genius perk, and I placed them on the wall with sticking spells before asking the patients to come back inside. I would be filling in for the good doctor until he recovered.
Most of the residents of Nerima were apparently quite used to the general weirdness of the area by now, so a sixteen year old girl with medical degrees taking over for Doctor Tofu during one of his episodes went without comment. I figured out how to regenerate and rejuvenate various different types of tissue that day with precision applications of [Holy] instead of letting it wash over the whole body, and covered it by saying I'd studied some radically different things than the local doctor had and we were studying each-other's' techniques. When the last patient of the initial crowd left I took some time to scan Doctor Tofu for curses and the like. I was disappointed not to find any, as that would have made his idiot routine easier to fix. I woke him up by countering the sleep spell.
"What? Wrin? What happened?" He asked as he sat up.
"A certain young lady came to talk to you and you flipped out, putting both her and your patients in danger. Not to mention yourself. Do you have any idea what this could do to your practice? I handled the rest of the patients that were waiting and came to wake you after. Yes, I have the qualifications and I've added them to the wall display temporarily. Now explain what the fuck you thought you were doing."
Tofu went slightly glassy-eyed remembering Kasumi's visit, but the mention of putting people in danger sobered him up. He looked lost, almost hopeless, and thanked me while moving to make some coffee. I waited patiently for him to begin speaking, and what I got was a frustrated rant filled with self-loathing.
"Kasumi...is a lovely girl. She seems to like me a lot, and not in a completely platonic way. It...I've been the Tendo family's doctor since they were all very young, and while I like her I can't get over the age difference. It's driving me mad! My mother is always harping on me about getting married and Kasumi would be a wonderful wife, but it feels so wrong! It'd be legal, sure. That doesn't make it right! The episodes started about a year ago when I realized how serious she was about all of this and that I couldn't stop thinking of her as both the little girl I'd once known and the woman she's becoming. She's been so persistent that I haven't been able to fully calm down and meditate in months, since I'm constantly both on alert and fighting an internal struggle to figure out what to do. If it keeps up I may have to leave Nerima entirely!" I laid a hand on his shoulder and gave him a consoling look as tears rolled down his cheeks.
"Believe it or not, I know how you feel. Despite my appearance I'm something like seventy years old, Doctor. Having lived with subjective time for a while makes the exact number difficult to determine, but I've been living without romance or sexual relations for over thirty years. It's not fun, and if I don't do something eventually I'll drive myself up a wall just like you have. Let's go over this rationally, shall we?" The Doctor nodded, not even seeming phased by my age. "You and Kasumi both like each other, but you can't find it in yourself to show affection for her beyond that of a family friend. Is that correct?"
"Yes," he nodded, wiping his face with a towel after washing it in the sink then moving to clean up the clinic area, probably for something to do with his hands. "I feel disgusting whenever I realize I'm thinking about her as a woman. It's like being attracted to my niece or something."
"And you can't talk to her about it because those feelings overwhelm you and logic goes out the window?" I asked,
"Something like that. I've been looking into what the episodes could be, but so far the best I've come up with is a combination of panic disorder and hysteria. The mind is not well understood, even in the medical community," he said bitterly. I contemplated the options available to me for a moment, and decided that this was probably something I could help with. Even if it hurt both of the parties involved in the short term, the long term benefits should outweigh that. If I made a mistake I would do everything I could to fix it.
"Doctor...I know of a technique to keep people calm. If you and she were both able to stay rational and talk about this would you be willing to try explaining the situation to her? The situation itself is obviously painful and the talk could prove moreso, but I think in the end it would be for the best," I asked cautiously. He looked at me pitifully for a few minutes before nodding and asking I perform the technique on him immediately as a test.
I shaped my will into a variation of the cheering charm from the Potter-verse, and let the resulting mana settle over him. As it did the tightness around his eyes disappeared and he slumped a little.
"That technique must be both useful and dangerous. I could see myself coming to rely on it like an addiction," he said quietly. I nodded, thinking of how similar it was to Gamer's Mind and how that had affected me in the years since I'd acquired the ability. When I asked if he wanted to follow through with talking to Kasumi he considered it for several minutes, then nodded. I told him I'd see if I could bring her by that night after dinner, and that I'd call him from the Tendo home if plans changed. He seemed to accept it and moved to tend to a patient that had just arrived, so I set the spell to last until around midnight then slowly fade and took my papers with me as I left.
Kasumi was still asleep when I got back, so I went ahead and prepared a bit of American comfort food: grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. If Kasumi didn't like it I still had cake, pizza, and a few Japanese meals in my inventory. We ate in silence after I woke her for the meal, then I told her I'd convinced Tofu to come over that night to talk about things. Her face went red and her expression turned to a mix of alarm and sadness, which took quite a while to talk out. I wasn't really qualified as a therapist or counselor, but I like to think I did pretty well. When I told Kasumi about the calming technique and how dangerous it could be long term she thanked me, but said she'd rather not use it unless it was necessary to get through the night's events.
After that she just seemed to want to keep busy, and alternated between doing chores without magic and reading a novel. The others arrived home from their various tasks and noticed the somber mood, but said nothing to me. Kasumi probably answered a few questions, since Soun mentioned the doctor was coming over after dinner just before the meal started. Guinevere had been following me around the since I got back from the clinic, sometimes singing soft comforting notes to help keep the mood from turning too sour and Ember was more than happy to give me a hug when I needed it. I didn't want to use Gamer's mind for this if I could avoid it. Emotional development was important, and being unable to empathise during a conversation like what was coming could be detrimental.
The talk with Doctor Tofu went about as well as I'd expected. I'd eased back the strength of the calming spell on him to allow them to work things out between themselves, and there was very little yelling. I waited outside and did my best not to listen in, but there was a lot of crying and I'm pretty sure Tofu got punched a couple of times. The break-up, if one could call it that, was emotional but final. The doctor recommended Kasumi and possibly the rest of the Tendos see me for her medical needs until he could find someone to take over his practice permanently, and that he would start the process of relocating but that it could take some time. He knew I was only in the area for a planned ten year stay, so he never asked me to be his replacement at the clinic.