Ruroni Ranko
Chapter Six

by Skysaber
aka Jared Ornstead

During the mushroom incident events diverge from normal and enemies try to take advantage of our pigtailed hero. Unfortunately for them, attempts to get rid of him often go disastrously wrong.

12345

Nabiki Tendo had arrived in a different age. She'd thought she'd known about it, but gazing out upon it in present-tense, she admitted she was wrong.

Oh, sure, they'd studied some of the history of that era, touched on it several times from more than one side actually, between all of the classes she'd taken. She knew a bit about the food they ate, what they wore, who some of the major figures were, and a whole lot of politics mixed with some important battles.

But it wasn't real.

It's like hearing about Disneyland and the Superbowl, then thinking you are prepared to visit America. That summary was for school children who didn't care about their subject in the slightest, except for memorizing just enough to regurgitate out on a test to achieve a grade they wanted.

The skimmed-over brush given to this period of history had sounded complete to her when she'd been on the other end of a teacher's desk, more concerned about betting pools and manipulating her fellow students. But for every major historical figure she knew of, and for every battle, there were hundreds if not thousands she knew nothing about, all of them with their effects on history.

For example, the American Revolution was alot more than George Washington and Gettysburg, with a Declaration of Independence thrown in there somewhere. It was a complicated mosaic of people, places, battles and politics that made sense when viewed in context of a myriad of details as fully intricate and interlocked as ordinary lives are, and the summary left out so much detail it sounded almost trivial "Oh, and they fought a war and won."

Think for a moment how simplified an obituary is: birth date and place, name, family and cause of death. Then compare that to your own life to get an idea how much is missing. Where did you go to school? Who were your friends? What did you do with your time?

Imagine, for a moment, you had read such a person's obituary and had only those facts about them, then you had to claim to know them. How was knowing where they were born going to help you conduct yourself around people who did know them? There were so many missing facts you're better off not trying to pass yourself off as knowing them at all.

Nabiki found she knew effectively nothing about the period, much less than the natives. And what facts she did know were actively scaring her out of her wits.

First of all, the individual had no legal rights in Tokugawa Japan. The family was the smallest legal entity, and the maintenance of family status and privileges was of great importance at all levels of society.

Obviously, as she was standing there alone, she had no family, or at least none who would recognize her. That left her with all of the legal status of a stray animal or missing pet. Anyone could do just about anything they wanted to her, and no one was going to say 'boo' to stop them.

Except, people were more likely to rescue a missing pet.

Secondly, out of all potential excuses for knowing next to nothing about her present environment, none sounded appealing. She knew Europeans who landed on Japanese shores were put to death without trial, with the exception of the Dutch traders based on an artificial island in Dejima. She also knew that native Japanese were by and large forbidden from leaving native shores, and those who did leave were forbidden from ever returning.

So she couldn't afford to have anyone viewing her as an outsider, but an outsider was what she effectively was. Thus placing her in even more dangerous circumstances, as not only was she an individual, and thus without protections or rights, she stood out as one. By not being able to blend in, she effectively advertised that she had no one to protect her. Even her native Japanese language skills were tainted by future dialect and loaned words borrowed from English and other languages, and so would stand out.

Having arrived as children, both Ukyo and Ranma had not stood out like she was, as children were expected to be imperfect in many of their skills, language among them. But she did not have that excuse, being seventeen in an age where people were often doing a full adult's workload at age twelve.

Heck, if she were a peasant, she really ought to have been married with one or two babies by now, keeping house for a husband, and shouldering an immense workload of cooking, laundry, and other chores.

An awful lot like Kasumi, actually.

With a sick feeling in her stomach, Nabiki realized that here in the past she was just as helpless as Ranma had been back when she'd had him under her thumb and he hadn't any of the skills necessary to get out from under her control.

Now that shoe was on the other foot.

Because, staring around at the hardworking peasants around the rice paddy she'd landed in, Nabiki realized with a sick, sinking sensation, that all of the rules were different here. The way she was being stared at made that obvious.

Thankfully, even if he didn't realize the extent to which he'd done it, Ranma had granted her warnings about an important one or two ahead of time, and some of the rest she could guess what what little she did know.

For one, she was wearing a school uniform whose skirt ended comfortably below the knee. Modest in Nerima, yet in this environment she may as well hang a sign around her neck 'whore for hire'. Worse, all of the clothes she'd packed in her bag were what she'd always considered 'casual wear', including cut off shorts, midriff barring shirts, tight jeans and sexy blouses, all clothes in which she felt attractive or desirable.

Being attractive or desirable gave you something others wanted. It had allowed her to chisel more than one date into an expensive evening that left him in momentary poverty. However, that equation worked by one simple rule that no longer applied - it all hinged on the girl's ability to refuse and say 'no' at any point, to any suitor, and make her refusal stick.

Ranma had already dropped an important hint about the dangers of this era: that that was no longer the case. Women did not have that right here, only their families, and she had none who'd stand up for her.

That one rule change made the whole attractiveness paradigm different. It was now no longer an advantage to have a body others wanted, as those others were in a position to take it as often as not. The powerful of this day and age took what they wanted, and only another powerful person or a group of could stop them. And, if you didn't have land and the wealth that came from it, or a position attached to someone who did, the only power worth mentioning was martial arts.

Nabiki was starting to see the irony of her punishment by that point.

When Ranma had come to Nerima she'd had the advantage, known the rules of her environment, and used that against him to deadly effect. He'd been helpless before her all because of one simple rule of his: that it wasn't honorable to use his skills against those who couldn't defend themselves.

She'd used that as a weakness against him.

Feudal Japan did not have that rule. This was an era where the strong took what they wished and everyone else had to shut up and deal with it or fight back and get crushed, and that rule held true from the Shogun on down. The whole stoic image, along with all of the elaborate forms of politeness that marked the Japanese so, was built upon not offending anyone stronger than you, who'd then make sure you'd regret it.

Now suddenly that simple 'weakness' she'd always preyed upon and used against the ignorant sap had real meaning to the girl. It was life. It was breath. It was one of the most beautiful things ever created. Because that was a basic rule that made life so very different between the Edo period and the one she was accustomed to and comfortable with.

The girl considered her options, then she ran toward the forest, and cover, away from the prying eyes of those peasant villagers. Some of the more lecherous of those guys were already showing signs they saw her and were developing intentions toward her she'd have been happy to encourage, then squelch, under better circumstances.

But now that rule set was different. They were bigger than her. She hadn't practiced any martial arts for years, and wasn't about to trust her rusty skills in that area with anything so precious as her life and virginity. And, the friends and neighbors who would have enforced restraint in any other environment were all looking like they'd all like to join in the gang bang when one or more of their number eventually caught her.

Looking at how the male villagers looked at her, Nabiki suddenly felt like a sake bottle set out in the middle of a crowd of drunkards. No one was going to stop anyone else from taking some so long as they got their share.

She wasn't liking what she found, as she considered her options, even while rushing in among those trees, plunging deeper into the woods in search of cover.

First order of business was to find some new clothes, something modest enough not to go bragging about what an extraordinary body she had, particularly by the standards of the day. Something making her clothing situation worse still, was it wasn't simply indecent by local standards. It wasn't based on anything traditionally Japanese, and if any of those guys back there thought about it, they'd probably take the cut of her current mode of dress for a European style. Her hairstyle too, more than likely.

She was full-blooded Japanese, and they'd be able to tell that. But between her accent and her clothes they'd almost certainly conclude that she'd left Japan's shores to travel abroad, and that meant she'd be under an automatic death sentence for having left and then returned. And yet there was nothing stopping them from 'playing' with her before they carried out that sentence, or even keeping her around as a slave until they decided to execute her. In suspecting her of having traveled, they had the perfect blackmail material to control her, if they wanted, and could therefore use and abuse her as they wished.

She didn't expect she'd enjoy such a life, even if they didn't kill her.

So she HAD to get new clothing. That was not optional. But even after she did that, her situation still didn't look so good.

She was an outsider, and defenseless. So nobody would feel bad about abusing her. From those stories she'd read it was a very clannish and insular period where people stood together for what protection they could offer, and strangers would be viewed with scorn or suspicion at least, outright hostility at worst, even if they didn't stand out as possible 'having traveled abroad' prey to whom you could do anything. Humble peasants would kill wandering samurai in their sleep just to steal their armor, weapons and clothes.

If she wanted to be honest with herself, good old 'law and order' only reached so far as the sword of the person enforcing it, and those men were out to pursue their own interests, not look out for yours. She'd often read, more than once, about leaders ordering trusted subordinates to commit ritual suicide, and then banishing their families after they did so. Why? Not because of anything those retainers did, but because they stood in the way of something their lord wanted.

So, directly after getting ahold of a change of outfits so as to not stand out so badly, the second item on her priority list was to get a protector.

How to get one was a problem all on its own. Soun's middle daughter had to face, in a moment of survival-inspired honesty as she crawled deep in a thicket of tangled bushes, that she wasn't all that good at earning trust, only abusing it. And you couldn't abuse the trust of a person who didn't trust you. So that ruled out most of her usual tricks as far as controlling people went. She couldn't, therefore, just twist their arm into protecting her.

In a worst case, she could hire someone. But where would the money come from? Money could cure so many ills. But how to get some local currency?

She supposed she could run a betting pool. However the first time someone lost a bet to her they'd probably kill her instead of paying it off. They'd find a reason to pick a fight, or accuse her of cheating, and that would be the end of her. A samurai could kill her himself, while an angry peasant would have to gather together a group of his friends, but either way she would be dead if anyone was of a mind to do so to her.

She was not interested in that course of action.

Blackmail depended on having information others didn't want you to reveal. Nabiki had started that selling out her sister Akane, and using pictures of her (pictures that boys didn't want their girlfriends to know they'd bought) to get holds on other people, who'd then given her extra information, and so on in a steadily building web.

Well, information came from contacts, and she had none. Besides, none of her usual tricks for getting girls to sell out their families to her would work around here. Families meant everything to a person. They were your source of protection and well-being, providing all of the necessities of living and your only shelter from the rest of an often hostile society.

Odd, but Nabiki Tendo had never truly appreciated what her often oddball family meant to her until that moment, crouching in a ball at the center of some bushes with her knees drawn up to her chest as she struggled not to sob or cry aloud in fear. Others hadn't bullied her because she'd always been able to call on her martial artist daddy and kid sister for protection. She'd never had to concern herself over food or laundry because Kasumi took care of it. They'd had a nice home and a comfortable state of living...

... and she'd been a greedy, domineering bitch who hadn't appreciated it at all.

If she could have gone back to her old life at that moment she would have given a sincere kiss of gratitude to every one of them, flaws and all. But sadly, she didn't have that option.

Probably for the best, as she would have gone back to her old ways within a week.

As those lecherous local peasants beat the bushes of the forest looking for her, the temporally displaced girl tried to focus her thoughts on what to do, instead of miserably trying to control her terror and biting her thumb to avoid screaming and drawing all of them to her.

Halfway through a prayer her mother taught her, quietly mumbled so as not to draw any notice except, hopefully, from the God it was aimed to, Nabiki realized that was another nail in her coffin, as if she'd needed more. Her mother had been Christian. Kasumi still wore her cross around her neck.

Nabiki hadn't cared much one way or another before, but as the saying goes 'there are no atheists in foxholes'. When your life is on the line, everyone finds religion, or so the folklore went. Having a dad like Soun was all that was needed to turn one off of ancestor worship permanently, so it was the prayers her mother cared enough to teach her that the frightened girl had caught herself mumbling.

Christianity was another one of those things punished by automatic death without a trial if discovered in Tokugawa Japan. She felt sure she knew enough about Shinto to get by, but then again, merely her knowledge of Christianity picked up at her mother's knee was almost certainly enough to get her killed, whether she practiced it or not.

As if she needed another problem or more secrets to hide.

On the other hand, those softly muttered prayers had comforted her in a way not easy to find when all your mortal prospects looked dim. So, shoving aside morbid thoughts of just how many ways she was in potential deadly danger, she tried once more to force her mind to focus on ways to resolve the problem.

Bribery was another standby of her tactics, but again that depended on something she didn't have, namely something of value (she didn't consider using her body an option, and no one would want her clothes, for the same reasons she didn't).

Not able to implement or risk blackmail, bribery or betting and she was beginning to run short on her usual tactics. She had no photographic equipment with her, and no way to develop pictures even if she did. She had a cell phone, but it would be at least a hundred and twenty years before she would get a signal, which also made her book of phone numbers useless.

She had carried some cash back with her, but it was all in paper money, which was utterly useless unless she wanted to wipe her bum on it, and she still couldn't bring herself to do that. Using yen notes as toilet paper would be the final acknowledgement that she'd given up all hopes of going back, and she wasn't going to do that without a struggle.

No, Ranma had found a way back. So would she.

Once those peasants had passed, but before they doubled back to perform a more careful search, Nabiki crawled out and ran another way, cutting across the angle of pursuit to escape out the side of their impromptu chase pattern.

Arriving at a deep enough point behind the cover of those trees, Nabiki paused for breath. So far no one was chasing her on her new route, that was good. Her clothes weren't torn up by the run past brambles and branches, that was also excellent, and she berated herself for being so careless with them so early on. When these got torn to rags she'd have nothing decent to replace them. All of her usual outfits were indecent by current standards, which was not an advantage, but at least they were clothes.

Although, as she considered it, at least if she were seen running around naked they'd be less likely to assume that she'd left Japan, then returned, thus earning an execution.

Shaking herself clear of that thought, and the prostitution that would surely result from it, Nabiki delved into her pack and pulled out her favorite set of pajamas - the ones with the yen signs on them.

Not even feeling a twinge of discomfort over ruining what had been a favorite article of clothing, Nabiki knelt by a stream, one with a clay bed, and proceeded to mash the clay into the fabric of her pajamas, before washing it out again and repeating it a couple of times.

As kids they'd gone camping with their dad fairly often, until Akane had gotten lost in a forest filled with giant animals and Soun's overprotectiveness assured that they'd never gone camping again. But Nabiki found to her pleasure the old skills of washing clothes in a stream still returned to her after all of those years.

Standing up again after half an hour of washing and beating, in between mashing and starting all over again, the middle daughter of Soun Tendo stood up to admire her new clothes. They were clay colored, which was a simple but effective dye that had ruined some of her outfits as a kid, before she'd learned to avoid it. But the simple cut of her pajamas was almost the same clothing style as worn by those peasants she'd seen. Combined with one of those conical reed hats that had fallen off of one of their heads during the chase, and she had picked up on her escape, and she'd look almost normal from a distance.

She stripped out of her school uniform and placed it in her pack before dressing in her pajamas and newly acquired reed hat. The dyed cloth was still soaking wet, but it was a warm day and they would dry out fast enough as she wore them.

It was a starting point. The rest could flow from there, or so she hoped.

12345

In the bright Tokyo sunshine Kasumi was taking Akane to a special one-time-only art exhibit by Kuno, getting permission to enter only because he knew them (and even then, the lines stretch for hours long). But it truly seemed to be the best way to get her sister's mind off of her current problems and allow her face to heal.

She was broody, and when she got broody Akane scowled, and that wasn't letting those cuts heal.

Stepping up to the front of the line at last, the eldest Tendo girl presented their invitations and, after a short wait, they were admitted inside, where they were met by Kuno himself.

"Good morning, Kuno-san," Kasumi greeted him with an appropriate bow. "It was very kind of you to invite us."

Akane's face, though hidden behind bandages, had gone white as she'd stared around at all of the artwork - depicting dozens of portraits of Ranko done at lifesize, just from what she could see from standing near the entrance.

A small but very well developed trigger at the back of her mind wanted to go rip and tear them to shreds, as she wasn't feeling very fond of her fiance just now. However, it must be said, somehow the presence of armed security guards posted prominently around each of these priceless reproductions gave her a small pause.

So instead she screamed, "Why are there pictures of that BAKA all over the place?"

Instantly Akane stood alone, surrounded by empty space, as the high and mighty of Japan gave her a wide berth. Even Kasumi, quite by accident, found herself standing over ten feet away as her youngest sister became the focus of ire from some of the wealthiest families and business tycoons in the country.

Several guards approached to remove her, but a gesture from Kuno held them at bay for a moment.

"Akane," he spoke mildly, but with utter calm to his convictions. "I know of your rivalry with the pigtailed girl for my affections. Long have you struggled to surpass her in my noble eyes. However, at last it has come to a time when, I, the noble son of the House of Kuno, am going to show to the world how I am about to claim my very own flame-haired Ranko!"

A bolt of lightning split the clear blue sky and thunder rolled at his pronouncement.

"Wha... what did you say?" Akane stumbled over the words, unaware that at Kuno's statement of her supposed rivalry with Ranko, most of the ire toward her ceased from the female half of her offended audience, as they could suddenly understand - or so they thought. After all, very few of them could match Ranko's beauty, and they could understand a bit of jealousy from a girl who'd had to try.

The male half of those wealthy or powerful enough to witness this unseemly display felt they could understand too, but weren't about to forgive a slight to their Ranko anyway.

Akane's mind was practically a blur with thoughts and images. She'd never made the connection before, but standing there, gaping and staring at those portraits, she recognized at last the one or two that had had reprints in one of her school art or history books.

That was the legendary flame-haired Ranko!

Now here, it must be said, Akane's usual deductive ability came into play. The one where she'd add two plus two and reach seventeen, or twenty three, or negative one hundred and twenty six, depending on which screw was loose at the time. As there were a great deal of screws loose, rattling around in there, one could never tell what conclusion the girl would reach given perfectly reasonable and straightforward information.

She knew who the legendary flame-haired Ranko was, of course. Ranko and Hideki was actually her favorite play, displacing Romeo and Juliet by quite a large margin. Three times her elementary school had put that on, and each time she'd gotten chosen as Hideki (after having applied for the part of Ranko).

Like most Japanese girls she'd gone through a phase where she'd wallowed in tears of jealousy over her fiery hair and voluptuous figure. And again, like most Japanese girls, she'd never truly gotten over it completely. It was always lurking there, somewhere in the background, pretty much all of the time she'd see someone who reminded her of that ideal.

But connecting that ideal of legendary Japanese femininity with her fiance was just impossible! She'd never once made that connection!

Why... that would be like admitting that her cooking was actually terrible!

Okay, she might have had one or two little problems with a recipe every now and then, but she knew most of the times Ranma said something about it he was just being a jerk, as usual. It couldn't be that she'd been that bad. Besides, even if it was, that jerk deserved it for saying those things anyway!

But, for the first time, she'd added two and two together and reached a reasonable approximation of four, as she stared about at the lifesize portraits and photographs blown up, side by side, and realized that, you know, Ranma's girl side DID look alot like flame-haired Ranko after all!

Of course, she immediately had to sour that admittedly unique triumph of accuracy in deduction by glowing red and shouting to the heavens, "THAT PERVERT! I always knew he was running around, trying to seduce all of Japan!!!"

Just imagine! That jerk was trying to impersonate flame-haired Ranko! There was no way she was going to let him get away with sullying the image of one of her heroes!

12345

After having traveled for half of a day, chasing Genma while staying hidden along the way, Seijuro and Ukyo came to a stop as the old man (who'd finally reached fairly deep in some mountains) came to what looked like his destination.

"The Red Hot Tea House?" Ukyo muttered in disbelief.

"Do recall that our quarry did say he was going to visit a brothel in search of those unsealing techniques. It is hardly surprising he has found one," her brand new father figure murmured right back to calm her, earning a touch more of her trust as he did so, acting like a respectable father - and, it must be said, a more comforting one than her own natural one.

Both martial artists suddenly whirled, weapons out and ready, to face the kunoichi who'd come up behind them. Seeing she posed no threat, both relaxed their guard, and blinked. In almost eerie unison, they addressed the newcomer in stereo, "You are a guy."

Konatsu blinked at this sudden revelation, then bowed his head. "Never have I been exposed so quickly before. May I welcome you to the Red Hot Tea House?"

Ukyo was eying the ninja before her, dressed in patched up rags and looking pathetically hungry. Her experience in the past did permit her to miss the obvious signs of mistreatment. "Oh, we aren't here for your normal business, sugar. Besides, I am already gleefully married. No, we came in search of an unsealing technique, used to correct a certain celibacy ritual performed by monks around here."

Konatsu's eyes flicked over Seijuro, who was still on passive guard, and dismissed him as the subject needing such treatment. Angling his head, he asked, "Who requires this technique?"

"My husband, who was kidnapped and had the ritual performed on him unwillingly when he was only a kid," Ukyo informed the pretty, if badly dressed, fellow ninja. Then her heart broke and she whipped out her portable griddle, starting to pour batter. "Why don't we discuss it over lunch?"

The bedraggled kunoichi's eyes began to water in mysterious delight.

12345

Ranma had been split into eight copies that were essentially solid dreams, while his real self slept in the magic mirror that generated those clones. One of the copies had been 'poofed' right away, as part of a demonstration by the caretaker that they weren't very strong or durable. But the remaining seven were plenty to take his rather large crowd of girls out on dates.

After one of those dream clones had brought back a sizable stack of cash from Nabiki, in payment for all those many long months of being used as a cash cow by her, there was plenty and to spare to suit them for quite some time.

With the dates all planned out by Miukyo, and outfits chosen for each of him by both her and Miranko, there wasn't a great deal left to do but show up.

For courtesy to each girl, as well as to avoid any unwanted explanations, each dream body of Ranma would be taking the girl assigned to him to a different restaurant in a different area, just to avoid any mixups or confusion.

Miukyo and Miranko left on their dates with their dream clones direct from the Mirror Mansion. Miranko and her date weren't aware of the fact that they were being followed discretely by reporters as they went through gardens, had dinner at an open-air restaurant, and enjoyed all of the beauty of youth and springtime.

Though one or two reporters did get kicked out of the movie theater, for their camera gear had given the management reason to suspect they were there to make a bootleg copy of the film being featured - NOT to spy on two of those watching it. Thus, the couple quite unintentionally shook their tails and were able to have a successful and joyful evening together, most of which was spent in sappy moments, staring into each other's eyes with hands clasped together in romantic bliss.

Miukyo had a date no less eventful, as she and her dream clone of her hubby went to a good Italian restaurant, and she'd been shocked to discover an octopus mask hidden in her spaghetti dish.

Chasing down the octopus that had put it there to an empty field, she and Ranma came upon an old rival Ukyo had had in her youth - another member of an ancient ninja clan who's secrets had been passed down only after having gotten watered down during one of those disarmament periods the country had gone through, and whose ninjitsu style survived only in the form of a cooking art, much like hers, only focused on making those little octopus dumplings called takoyaki.

Ukyo had beaten the boy in a challenge match when they were both ten years old, and as a result of this defeat (and the promise he'd made before the fight) the boy had ever since worn a stupid looking octopus mask, and would continue to do so because of his faithful loyalty in keeping his word, until he'd defeated Ukyo.

Hayato Myojin led off with his 800 Strikes of the Octopus King, sending a veritable rain of high-velocity takoyaki to impact upon...

... nothing. Because of Ukyo's training in her unadulterated art form in the past, she was able to disappear from before her opponent, reappear behind him, and bind him up in binding yakisoba noodles.

Hey, she'd not been expecting any ninja battles. Her ropes were back at the house.

Still, having defeated the opponent, Ranma intervened to offer the poor defeated guy an alternative to his masked life - offering him an opportunity to switch out one oath for another, becoming a Hiko family retainer in exchange for losing the mask.

Hey, the guy had already demonstrated a surreal amount of loyalty to his promises, and he was almost Ukyo's equal as a chef and martial artist before her trip back into the past. They could use someone like that to hold down the fort during their wanderings.

Miukyo had thought that a fine idea, and pretty soon Ranma (who had unparalleled construction skills from all those trades he'd acquired trying to avoid delays in his martial arts training under Seijuro, when Kenshin was still the favored student) had expanded Ucchan's into a double restaurant, with separate, divided apartments for Ukyo, her mirror clone, and Hayate above the main floor dining area.

Hayato was a takoyaki artist, not okanomiyaki, so the chefs didn't know each other's recipes, thus the reason for the 'two restaurants under one roof' approach with two kitchens but shared tables. The idea was that, between the three of them, they'd be able to keep at least one side of her restaurant open in spite of any missions or martial arts training journeys they went on.

Open businesses earned money. Closed ones did not. And money often solved problems that swords could not, so it was a useful thing to have.

As for the other dates... well, some of them had more interesting results.

12345

Author's Notes:

Hi! I use the American Sailor Scouts names for two reasons. One is a secret, and two is that's the version I have seen. I'd actually love to watch the uncut originals, but those and I have never crossed paths. If anyone can point me to some I'd be grateful. Perhaps even grateful enough to change some things.

I only do crossovers with series I've seen and, when you come down to it (with the exception of a handful of Stars episodes graciously loaned to me by Gregg Sharp) I've never seen the original Japanese Sailor Moon with subtitles.