Chapter 3: The Road to Japan
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
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Ranma woke near dawn with his pulse pounding. Another dream about life with the Tendos. He'd rarely had dreams before Jusenkyo; his father always made sure he was thoroughly exhausted. Now his exhaustion didn't seem to matter. He was getting dreams every night. And he knew they weren't just dreams; they were visions of his future, more extended and focused than he could get while on the move, or even while meditating - though in meditation he had great control; while asleep he was just along for the ride.
Awake, he was getting better at using his visions to defeat his father in daily sparring. Sometimes he could stay in control of a whole session. It was almost fun to use the power. But part of him was still uneasy. He didn't like being a girl, and the dreams and controlled meditations were describing why in stark terms.
They were showing him his future life: a life of shifting demands to go with his shifting form. A big-picture strategic map that revealed not only the future but the past - things he had thought he left behind.
Ryoga... he hadn't seen the Lost Boy in three years. With Ranma staying in one place, he would be able to find Ranma on a regular basis again. Finding opponents on the move was impossible for him; someone who stayed in once place, merely difficult. But he had no skills Ranma couldn't deal with... and his Jusenkyo curse was a major weakness.
Some of these other martial arts disciplines he would deal with were just plain strange. He was wondering why he hadn't heard of them before, though... normally his father sought out unusual training for him. Many of these schools didn't seem like real martial arts, but that shouldn't throw his father off.
Just now, though... Ucchan. His old childhood friend was... a girl? Not a curse, but a real girl? Why hadn't anyone told him back then? And a marriage contract? THAT was how they'd gotten the yattai? And now apparently Ucchan's reputation was ruined and she had to live as a boy. It was enough to make Ranma sick.
Is this going to go on? Ranma thought. What else is there? How much don't I know about my own life? What has Pop been hiding?
Well, they were back in Japan now. He could get away from his father if necessary to check some things out. Right now, he needed to work over what he knew. If he could just figure out how to handle the things he had seen so far, it could calm his life down.
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Later that day, they did meditation. Ranma decided it was time to set to work.
He was in front of the Tendos. Soun was just waking up. The family was coming to terms with him being a girl.
Why didn't I come right out and tell them about the curse? Ranma wondered. Because I was embarrassed? Okay, I'm not embarrassed NOW. Let's get this over with.
"Ummm... actually, I am a boy. I just LOOK like a girl right now."
"Uh-huh," Nabiki said, very unconvinced. "You look an awful LOT like one."
"Umm, yeah... about this...give me some hot water and I can show you."
"Hot water? How is that going to help?"
This was going to be harder than he thought. He jumped back to the start. "Ummm... sorry about the disguise..."
Nabiki poked a breast. "Awfully GOOD disguise."
Ranma flinched. "Cut that out! Ummm, well, we kinda need some hot water to, uh, dissolve some glue."
"Really, Ranma, you don't have to be embarrassed about anything," Kasumi said.
Not working. Ranma reset again.
"One second," he said, holding up a finger. He darted into the kitchen and set a kettle going.
Kasumi followed. "Ara! That's rude, barging into someone's kitchen and using it like this!"
"Trust me, this is important," Ranma said.
Akane came up in support. "What do you think you're doing! Kasumi, is she being a problem?"
"You're going to want to see this."
"I want to see you out, buster!" She assumed a stance.
A panda interrupted the scene, pushing the girls out of the way. After a few more seconds, Ranma took the kettle off the burner. His father immediately snatched it away for his own use.
This was only a slight delay. Ranma changed and stepped over the sisters, who had full-body faulted. Nabiki and Soun, who had not seen the change actually happen, were merely surprised.
"Saotome! Old friend! When did you get here?"
"Better sit down, Tendo. It's a long story..."
They made it through the explanation of the curses. In the interest of speeding things up, Ranma kicked his father into the koi pond first. He still got splashed, but that was no bother.
"These are my daughters. This is Kasumi, nineteen. Nabiki, seventeen. And Akane, sixteen. Pick whichever you like, she'll be your fiancee."
"Oh, he wants Akane!" "I agree!" "What? Why would I want to marry a pervert like that?"
"Pervert? It's not like I've seen you naked or anything!"
"You're a BOY who turns into a GIRL! If that isn't perverted, I don't know what is!"
"But you hate boys, don't you, Akane? Well, Ranma's half-girl," Kasumi tried to point out.
"STOP RIGHT THERE. I am NOT 'half-girl'. I'm a guy where it counts. I just LOOK like a girl sometimes."
"Well, that's being half-girl, isn't it?"
"And what if you were cursed to turn into a guy, huh? There's a spring for that. Should I go to China and get some water from there?"
"That's completely different," Nabiki said.
"How? Guys got to let girls be girls, but you don't have to let guys be guys? How is that fair?"
"You can be a guy. When you're a guy. When you're a girl..."
"No way. Uh-uh. Pop stole me away from my mom when I was a kid so I wouldn't have to deal with that stuff. He's raised me to be a 'man among men'. Whatever I look like on the outside, I always think and act like a guy. It's all I know. I don't know anything about being a girl, and I don't want to start."
"But, Ranma..." Kasumi pleaded.
"And I'm looking for a way to break this curse. I am NOT going to deal with it my whole life... unless I die in the next year or so."
The air in the room remained tense. Not least because of the heat coming from his father. Ranma looked at him and realized what he'd said. "Oh, yeah, I remember about the contract. Want to go back to China now?"
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He wouldn't, of course. But Ranma was making progress.
The next three days got results. He could smooth things over with the Tendos so that Akane knew about his curse from the start. He could make Kasumi and Nabiki understand he wasn't really a girl, but they still favored Akane as his fiancee. He could convince Kuno his girl side was actually him in disguise, get Kodachi fixated on Ryoga, and keep all challengers at bay. Getting Akane cursed to change into a duck was not as helpful as he'd hoped - it could be cured with Spring of Drowned Girl water, while his curse had proven too strong for the Spring of Drowned Man. The Tendos would prioritize a trip to China.
As Ranma settled down to sleep, he decided to look as far ahead as he could. It seemed like he was running into a lot of magical stuff in the next year. There had to be something he could use...
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White.
White cloth.
Sitting on a square of white cloth. Wearing a white outfit.
Kneeling down. With his father.
Blade in hand.
He looks to the blade, to his father, back to the blade. It all comes down to this.
The dreams. The sacrifices. The pain. Lost. Lost by a careless mistake. Lost by cowardice. Lost because... well, they didn't really deserve any of it.
They had proven themselves failures. Failed in every way that mattered.
Their lives defined by disappointment now. Dishonor. They could not live with themselves now. No one else wanted them to live, given what they had done.
Ranma looked up at the figure in dark kimono. Looked into the eyes of the one person who mattered anymore. Far more than his father.
His judge. His jury. His executioner. His -
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Mother.
Ranma stared at the darkness for a long time.
His mother was alive. And she would kill him.
When he was very little he'd asked Pop where his mother was. Other kids had mothers, didn't they? They stayed with a lot of different martial arts families and most of them had mothers somewhere. What about his?
His father had told him to forget it. He was not going to be some weakling who went crying to his mother when he got hurt or couldn't do something. And that was that.
His father couldn't hide anything anymore. No one could. Not anymore. Not with his power. He could find any truth.
He had found HIS truth. The truth of his life.
His mother was alive. And she would kill him.
She hadn't wanted them to leave. She wanted to be a good mother. A TRUE mother. She loved him. She made her husband sign a contract, demanding seppuku if Ranma didn't measure up to his father's promises. Which he couldn't, now.
Very tragic story. Jusenkyo strikes again.
Ranma looked at the panda sleeping beside him.
I'm a child of TWO morons, he thought.
No. He would not be like them. He would be better. It couldn't be that hard.
The panda was stirring. The day was about to begin. Finding a way to beat this would have to wait. Tomorrow night, or perhaps if they meditated today...
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Ranma got more flashes while walking that morning. More glimpses of his mother. He saw her determination to fulfill the contract.
The Tendos were not particularly understanding. Nabiki pointed out that at least HIS mother was alive. For this, she advised he be with her, discounting the threat to his life.
He found out the terms of the contract. His curse. Without it he would live, guaranteed.
Fair enough. He didn't want to be a girl. His mother didn't either. On that they could agree.
He was tempted to keep hiding, and keep the power of prophecy, but... if he had to, a year with it would set him up for life. Well used, he could get money enough to... well, no. His father could fritter away ANY fortune.
It was frustrating. He was surrounded by idiots and weaklings. Maybe it was fate that the Saotome family go extinct.
No. His self-preservation instinct was too strong. There had to be a way to get out of this.
He was in luck. Later that day they did meditation. Ranma focused as far forward as he could, trying to resolve as many of his problems as he could. His father's training told. There was a way to solve ANY problem, resolve any situation, defeat any foe, if you only had the strength to do what it took.
Anything Goes.
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Ranma drove the Saotome honor blade down halfway into the concrete of the walkway and broke it off. He threw the truncated blade away and fixed his gaze on his tearful mother. His chi blazed like fire all around him.
"I am Ranma. No family, no nation, no culture. Just Ranma. My life is my own. Where I walk, I walk alone." And with that, he turned about, strode easily down the walkway that had led to the Tendo's front door, over the still smoldering bodies of Happosai and Cologne, out to the sidewalk, turned left, and headed down the street.
"R-ranchan..." Ukyo ignored the pain, crawling on broken limbs to follow Ranma. She passed out before getting past the outside wall.
Nabiki looked about in horror at the ruins of her life. The house was gone, totally destroyed, as if hit by several tornadoes. Which it had, in the battle.
In the remains of the kitchen, Kasumi nursed Akane's broken jaw. It would take much time and surgery if she were to have any hope of ever being called "cute" again.
Over by the pond were the bodies of her and Ranma's fathers. Ranma's mother, kneeling on the porch, reached for the half-length sword Ranma had discarded and regarded it as if considering plunging it into her own guts.
Leading away from the pond was a line of three nude bodies, Jusenkyo curses broken by death. Ryoga was split open, gutted like the pig that he had been. Mousse was impaled on several of his own once-Hidden Weapons. Shampoo lay front down, face up, head nearly twisted off while in cat form.
Over along the outer wall, Kodachi babbled incoherently, her mind completely gone. She looked up into the sightless eyes of her brother. Tatewaki was pinned to the outer wall by his own family blade, the hilt protruding from his chest like some decoration.
At last they knew. Ranma was human, after all. He had his limits. And like any proud martial artist, when you broke them, you broke HIM. And then he broke YOU.
She wondered about using the Saotome honor sword when Nodoka was done with it.
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Ranma flinched, shook his head. Okay, he knew that path was there. It was the one he wanted to avoid. Now to find something else, something better. He found his center and went in again.
"Sailor Moon!"
"HEEELLLPP!" A Western girl with her hair done in improbably long ponytails ran desperately from a monster.
"KACHU TENSHIN AMAGURIKEN!" Ranma hit the thing with 102 blows in a matter of seconds. It virtually exploded, but it wasn't made of flesh. Its body reformed quickly.
"Ooooo-kay... MOKO TAKABISHA!" That had the same result. He started running in the blonde's direction.
She ran unusually fast for a girl, he noted, but nothing to compare to his training. He caught up and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Get a hold of yourself! You're the only one who can do this! Do that frisbee thing!"
"O-oh, right... Mooooon Tiaaaraaaa MAAAGIIIC!"
The monster dissolved in a cloud of dust.
"Magic, not chi or physical attacks. I've been running into magic all over the place since China." He turned back to Usagi. "Where can I get something like that?"
"A-hem," said a new voice at his feet. "I believe I can help you with that."
Ranma looked down at the speaker.
It was another monster. One far worse than the once he had just killed. He did the only thing he could under the circumstances.
He ran.
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Ranma blinked again. Where had THAT come from?
Unfortunately meditation was over for the day. He would not get another session for three more days.
With a groan, he resigned himself to investigating yet another new player in his life. And time was getting short. In five days they would be in Nerima. Then he'd have to put his plans to work.
He decided he would have to rework his meeting with the Tendos. It had been fine as it was, but with the revelations about his mother he wanted more time before meeting them. Time enough, perhaps, to deal with some of his other problems as well.
Five days to Nerima. He would be ready then.