Son Turned Daughter, Chapter 62
An unusual disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 is the trademark of Rumiko Takahashi and VIZ Communications, and its characters have been borrowed without permission. And Son Turned Daughter was originally written back in 2002 by fanfiction author Tangent. Please see the first two chapters of this series under his pen name. This series has been written for noncommercial use only.
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According to Ah!/Oh! My Goddess, the Yggdrisil System controls every aspect of the universe. Glitches thus break pieces of that reality and are usually manifested as six-legged, furry bugs with bunny ears. Sun Turned Daughter sees the gods as wanting to create a multiverse so they can explore various What Ifs. And that explains any differences between what is here and what is in the Goddess canon.
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Chapter 62
With Happosai on the ground and suffering from an overdose of the other Ranma's concentrated maleness, Pearl-san didn't have to shepherd the chaos-enjoyer. At least for the time being. She could now join in with the others rescuing the town from the reality changing bugs that Benten had let lose. The aged shrine maiden sang for her oversoul to come down to this level of reality and use her godly powers to help preserve it. Soon the wings of World of Elegance unfolded from the old woman's back, one white and one black and each longer than she was.
Her song changed as World of Elegance gave her the tune and unearthly vocals that carried spells more powerful than magic. Her wings lifted her up off the rooftop to join the Kasumi and her Holy Bell in the sky.
She did take one backward glance down at the street in front of Furinkan High. "It is a shame my angel isn't going to help that shameless master martial artist. If Happosai were at his full power, he could have rather easily taken out several bugs in one blow.
"Or used them for his ends.
"Oh, well. It's time for me to turn disasters into pranks!" And off she flew, chuckling.
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"Who is this creep who attacks girls?" Ryōga asked over the old man suffering on the ground.
"I don't know. I never met him before," said the redhead outside in her underwear and iron corset. "I kinda feel sorry for him. But there's others needin' our help!"
"Say, maybe he does, too. Maybe he's possessed by one of the bugs I can't see. Maybe."
"I can't see them, either. …But…maybe, this special corset can‒"
"Hey, Jackasses! You just going to ignore me?" Ukyo shouted at her.
"You gotta reason for me not to?" Then s/he remembered s/he had friends now. She no longer had to forget them to ease the pain of having to leave them behind. Never again would she be forced to leave friends! "Are you hurt, Ucchan?" She had just fought off a tornado.
Suddenly, the school bell rang releasing a horde of uniformed athletes, charging out of the building towards the front gate!
"School? It's still Golden Week!" Ranma said.
"Golden Week?" Ryōga said. "That's next week."
"The time bug!" s/he growled. "It messed with it. ‒Again!"
"Ranma! And whoever,, I could use some help!" Ukyo was fighting off hentai-minded attackers with her battle spatula. Half a dozen were already sprawling on the ground and two were sent flying while she talked.
"Man! I thought they stopped doin' that after the Battle of the Sexes!" the redhead frowned charging to help her.
"They did," Ryōga said, keeping up with her. "This must be because of the bugs!"
The giant spatula was finally yanked from the okonomiyaki girl's grips by a ballet dancer flying above her on his batwings.
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A batwinged chibi escaped the Otoshi-neko Blasts the redhead in an okonomiyaki uniform had used to force others of its kind from the bodies of manga workers. Those were left confused, while the bugs that made the frogman, playing-cardman, and the doodles, like the horsegod and girl panda had been destroyed by two other females. Their remains were powder, blowing away in the wind. A few still survived, one by hiding in its bell It, looking like precious toy, was dodging about, absorbing as much glitch as it could!
Ranma's aim was off. There was something about the porcelain doll that set off unfamiliar feelings she had no idea how to control, yet: So cute! And elegant! Dressed in a maiden's furisode kimono and holding an uchiwa paddle fan, it had an animanga face with large eyes under bobbed hair.
"Ranma! Less daydreaming, more blasting!" Akane yelled at her.
"Huh!? Oh, right!" And she blasted before she could think again how it looked like a girl's thing.
"Aiya! Shampoo dodge in time! No hit Shampoo, Airen; Shampoo no more catgirl!"
The doll flew in front of her face, too close for her to use her Tenshin Amaguriken fists on it. It used its little batwings to blow glitch in the Chinese girl's face. The powder made her sneeze several times; and each time she tried to catch her breath, she breathed in more than she had through her nose.
But Ranma could have a clear shot at the deceptive menace, she was attacked by a mailbox and a vending machine!
Surprised, she had to backed away to see both at once. She was backed towards a tree in the middle of the street. Akane arrived and saved her friend with her "Bakusai tenketsu!" Left behind in powdery mist was a confused, middle-aged man in a suit. Both breathed in some of the glitch. Akane, even more.
Meanwhile, an umbrella yokai had to be broken by Shampoo before the Kasa-obake left the office lady. It's last words were, "Why doesn't anybody like me?!"
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"Blow, Wind! To be young is to Go Gung-Ho!" a grown man in a football jersey and shorts declared from the top of the Furinkan wall. "Find your passion!"
"I don't want them to find their passion!" Ukyo cried, just escaping from being groped by gloved boxer who had nothing below the waist! It was just hovering without legs.
"Be a gentleman!" Ryōga told it as he delivered a knockout punch.
He was quickly wrapped in a long ribbons. "Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics," the three-headed teen declared.
Ranma helped Ryōga by punching the batwinged ballet dancer into the 3-in-1 guy. They groaned, "Men in leotards are misunderstood."
S/he did this while, finally, knocking out a sumo-sized martial artist with his own wooden dojo signs. "Stupid! There's no dojo to destroy, here!"
But having won against a barrage of weapons, had her find his old self! "Ha! Ain't nobody's gonna defeat me!"
That's when her shadow separated from her and came to life. Only it was it turned into the shape of…him.
Adding to the crowding of the sports hentai horde no came her worse nightmare: Kuno! Only he was no longer the stalker s/he knew. He looked like a life-sized Bunraku puppet! And he wasn't swinging a bokken, but a real katana!
The Something!? Would she have to fight the Something, too!?
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Pearl-san caught up with the pure white-winged Kasumi Tendo flying high above Greater Tokyo. "Putting the sky back in place and sending Mount Fuji back to Yamanashi? Is that all you've accomplished?"
"I have taken care of all that only humans could not battle against."
"You could have done more to lessen these disasters," she half-accused and half-smirked.
"I could have. But, then, what would be the need for heroes?" Those were the words Holy Bell prompted Kasumi to say. But her face told that she did not agree with the excuse. But what could she do about it? Any preternatural powers came from Holy Bell, not herself. She could not even remember the sounds of the "spells" her oversoul used to cast the changes to world. They were in a language that was far beyond human comprehension.
"Oh, my!" Kasumi said, not looking forward to the thrill she received when she joined with Holy Bell to change others' Destiny. "I am being directed to sing a new song."
"It is your choice." Almost. And Pearl-san chuckled at the joke Kasumi did not yet get. The old shrine maiden had a long history of being a Destiny for an oversoul that was counted as a goddess in several universes. Pranking had been how she had rebelled, vowing to find some use of the other-worldly that wasn't! Only to realize later that World of Elegance was half-angel and and half-demon. Pranking, it turned out, was a way for her to be both as a human. Her independence had been defeated long before she knew it had been.
"Then my choice is…"
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The shadow-form of her true self attacked first. The male was over a head taller! And was wider! And its impact showed how much muscle mass s/he had in a girl's body! It was so much stronger. And its hits felt the same as a male's had. So much firmer than the softness s/he was trapped in! How s/he envied it.
But s/he had to, by conditioning and spirit, find anything-different that could give her an edge!
"I got this!" Ryōga told her.
"No! I gotta do this all myself! Go fight‒Uh, a Sumo pig(?)!"
Distracted, s/he was barely able to dodge the Shadow Ranma. But s/he almost came, maybe, too close to the puppet Kuno!
But s/he didn't! She was lithe and agile. That was her advantage! That and her better senses. Her female senses were more acute than his male ones. Her training gave her the advantage in reading attacks! Her better fine muscle control gave her better ability to target shiatsu weak points! If it could hit her as if it were himself, then…
…The Shadow Ranma was down, taken down to the ground first by nerve pinches to its wrists, inside of its elbow, back and, finally, to the inside of its knee.
The puppet Kuno said, "So admirable! I must have you to be the mother of our children!" It didn't sound like his voice, but, perhaps, an actor playing him.
But the male-in-female still froze. Was this when all the debt s/he owed to Kuno come due?! If the Something was a curse, there could be no worse time for it to claim her and punish the him inside. (Did s/he hear a song?)
As if there wasn't enough chaos, something fell like a meteor from the sky and landed between them. It landed with a loud tink, then rolled for a few jingles before something emerged from the bell. It was huge! And white, and, and…. "Meow! That hurt! Mwhere is meow catgirl bride?"
"Cat!" Ranma cried. Gesturing against it, s/he unleashed what s/he didn't know s/he had: Otoshi-neko Blast!
It went right through the ghost cat and hit the rising Shadow Ranma. It disappear. But a Shadow Ryōga quickly formed.
Panicking, Ranma sent several blasts out, changing several of the high school students and teachers (only for the bugs to enter new hosts).
"Too scary!" the ghost cat Maomolin whined and disappeared back into his bell.
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Pearl-san chuckled, but said, "What was the point of that?"
"I really don't know. My goddess rarely tells me of her mysterious ways. But I'm relieved that the male Ranma knows that it did not originate in his female half. You know how they can be about things like that."
"*Hee, hee* It was still a great prank to use a real ghost and not one a bug transformed."
"It wasn't a prank!" Kasumi insisted.
"*Chuckle* Not from you. As a miko and an exorcist, I know that a half-human animal spirit will seek out a half-animal human. It must have sensed a girl who became catlike."
"But there are not cat-like girls there."
"The prank was to bring it from where the trap was baited and drop here, where it be made a prank!"
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Yes, more than just the time bug has altered calendar time. I went back and calculated the proper timeline of the stories of Son Turned Daughter and found I made a miscalculation along the way.
But that's good! I had originally intended to spend more time exploring the theme of Why Ranma Thinks Being a Girl Is Better Than Being a Boy - or Not. My Ucchan's Mom story confirmed it: I want to do side stories where I - or you - could explore the less plot-driven moments. It, of course, will have consequences on later chapters.
The "batwinged chibi" is based on the doll in The Doll of Vengence Arc, Ch. 331-332; and "The Two Akanes": the 11th OVA. Yes, that doll did not have batwings. (Any longer?) And, yes, she'll probably appear again.
The frogman is based on the anime S05E12. The playing-cardman is based on the Gambling King, Manga Ch. 150-153; S04E16. The the horse doodle is based on "Horse Prayer Tablet": Ch. 352. The girl panda doodle is based on "The Curse of the Scroll!": Ch. 179; "The Curse of the Scribbled Panda": S06E16.
The living made into "mailboxes", "vending machines", "tree" and "umbrella" is based on the disguises Tsubasa used in Ch. 100-102, and "I Love You, My Dear, Dear Ukyo": S02E22.
The batwinged ballet dancer and bottomless boxer are my own idea.
While the "Blow, Wind" coach is based on the one in S04E04. The three-headed Martial Rhythmic Martial Artists are based on the three teens of "A Leotard Is a Girl's Burden" of S05E10. The man with the wooden dojo signs is based on the Dojo Destroyer in Ch. 70-73; ""Danger at the Tendo Dojo!": S02E07. And the Sumo pigs are first found in Ch. 31 "Spring Comes To Ryoga"
The Shadow Ranma is based on S05E24.
Kuno being a puppet is very loosely inspired by what Mariko did to him while he was unconscious in C. 219-224; "Bring It On! Love as a Cheerleader": S07E17.
Maomolin was in Ch. 137-138; "My Fiance, the Cat": S04E09". And returns in Ch. 208-209. "New Year's Curse", and S07E07.