Son Turned Daughter, Chapter 58
An unusual disclaimer: Ranma1/2 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 zz2002 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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Events are speeding up again! A whole slew of people, places, things that appear only appear much later in manga and/or anime canon are going to start appearing now! Son Turned Daughter has and will greatly mix and shorten the timeline.
And Ah!/Oh! My Goddess people, places, things are also being added to this mix!
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Chapter 58
A rock the size of her womanly pelvis gave way beneath her and Ranma was falling on it–Until she used her Saotome techniques to leap off for, "Akane!"
The bruised and cut girl in the dirty and raggedy dogi yelled, startled by how close the redhead was landing! She fell backward! But, "I'll save you, Akane!" the pigtailed girl assured her.
But Akane got her own feet under herself even as she slapped the hand away. "I don't need saving."
"But you're up here on this steep mountain, on a cliff's ledge, and you're clumsy enough to…." Uh, only then did she stop to look at the ground. What she had said was true…but only on the side she had come from. The side Akane was on was a wide hilly slope coming off the mountain at around a forty-five degree angle. If Pearl-san had been up there, Ranma would have glared at her with daggers. "I was pranked!"
"Do you sense it?" Akane asked, her hand on a boulder larger than a man, half-inside the mountain.
"I see that it has a rope with wards. It has a shimenawa and should be left alone! It could have a demon trapped behind it!"
"But, but…I can sense it's breaking point! That's why we're out here in the middle of nowhere, so I can train to use the Bakusai Tenketsu technique."
Frowning at her stubborn friend, Ranma said, "Even I can find its breaking point!" And after a few seconds of feeling around, she found the epicenter of the shockwaves passing through it. "Something's trying to break the rock from the other side!"
That attitude hurt Akane more than her physical pains. Again she was reminded she was nothing special, not when compared to the whatever Cologne, Benten and even Pearl-san thought Ranma was. (The Cuihuaji?) If she failed to learn the technique assigned to her, she would not be able to compete in the Test to be an Honorary Woman Hero, and, more importantly, to win the right to be Ranma's girlfriend! Shampoo and Ukyo had probably already learned their techniques! "I, I was barely able to sense the breaking point in the boulders Pearl-san sent at me. The last two times, I wasn't even that good. I'm losing my confidence.
"Pearl-san said this boulder has the strongest breaking point of an aura she's ever seen. If I study it, I should be able to recognized weaker versions."
"She's pranking you!" the redhead shouted at her.
Then regretted it, seeing how even more hopeless it made her battered friend feel. "Oh, alright! But only study it!"
"But I'm supposed to be breaking things! Even exploding them!" she pleaded for her own best friend to understand. After all, Ran-chan was only other girl she knew who was as dedicated a martial artist!
"Stop wanting to explode things so badly! Especially people!"
"I never said I wanted to explode people! That is your idea!"
The little redhead was about to again argue with her, but slumped instead. "You're right. I should've known you're better than that." She gathered herself and sought to sound rational, "If you don't break this rock, you can have it around to learn what breaking points look like in rocks you can break without releasing a demon."
Akane looked around. "All of the big rocks with big breaking points are down there."
"Then we'll use small rocks!" And Ranma looked around and found one about the size of volleyball. "I'll hit it and you look for its breaking point."
"But will hitting something make its breaking point more visible?"
Ranma placed her other hand on the ward-protected boulder. "I'll learn from this how to make it show!" she said confidently. "Head's up!"
"I'm not ready!" Akane cried, slapping the rock away from her.
Ranma dove, caught it, rolled and came up onto her feet. "I'll keep hitting it until you can see it." And she rammed her fist against it, catching it before it flew away. "See anything?"
"Maybe a little. On the right."
"Okay!" And she turned that side around towards Akane. Again she hit and caught.
This went on for a few minutes, while Akane looked between the rock and the boulder.
"Hold on, Akane!" Ranma said. My hand is getting too bruised and busted up. I need to put on some dotabata balm."
But Akane missed the catch. The rock fell on top of some about the same size. Together, they reminded her of something. Akane began to fell like the Akane she knew. Being directed by the feeling, she placed one knee on the ground. Then without thinking, she karate chopped the raised nemesis rock! It broke. It broke as easily as any of the cinder blocks had back in her childhood dojo.
Inspired and confidence, she realized, "I already know how to sense breaking points!"
Overjoyed for her, Ranma opened her arms wide, ready to
–Too girlishly eager to make amends and congratulate her best friend, the redhead's hand accidentally struck something she was too close to: the boulder.
–It exploded! And Ranma and Akane had to break onrushing debris they couldn't dodge!
Behind the cloud of grit a pair of glowing red, evil eyes looked out from the cave it was no longer trapped in.
"Akane!" it cried as it sprung out at her.
Akane screeched as the thing grabbed her breasts! Her hair stood out from how gross it felt to her as it hung onto her!
Ranma grabbed onto the thing by the back of its collar. "Hands off her, creep!" she told it, before spiking it to the ground.
It merely bounced back and grabbed the redhead's mammaries! "Akane!"
Woman that this Ranma was, she felt just as disgusted as Akane. But not because he was a guy. She felt more invaded as her sense of touch was more heightened than her male memories said his was. But she hadn't been conditioned consciously or subconsciously to be cautious. Just the opposite, in fact, being trained to be a man among men. She banged the bald head of the little demon. "What, any girl is "Akane" to you?!"
"Your name isn't Akane?" the very little, old man said, looking up at her with tearing eyes.
"My name is Akane," Akane said.
"Akane!" he cried and leaped off the redhead's chest for that of–
"Aw, why did you have to tell him that(?)" Ranma said, grabbing the runt by a wedgie hold to his pants. "One Akane is as good enough as another for this lech!"
"Ow, ow, no! No!" he cried as he dangled, kicking his legs uselessly. "The Akane I'm looking for is Soun Tendō's daughter! I can sense the family aura!"
"You, you know my dad?!"
"You are Akane Tendō?!" He suddenly leaped out of his ninja-yoroi pants at her!
Akane shut her eyes to the sight and screamed! "Bakusai Tenketsu!"
Solidly hit, he fell from the side Ranma had climbed up by. "It'd be a great prank if he fell on top of Pearl-san," she said.
But he was almost immediately up and standing beside Ranma, taking a single swipe at her skirt. Both girl were relieved to see he had fundoshi underpants on. " 'Bakusai Tenketsu'(?) What heartless and cruel enemy of femininity is teaching you that technique!?"
"Heartless and cruel?" Akane repeated.
"Enemy of femininity?!" Ranma had just found her womanliness and wanted it to remain in force.
"Yes!" he declared, and pulled out a kiseru pipe. "The purpose of the Breaking Point Technique is to make or break its victim!" And he started smoking while sounding sage-like. "Those not broken are made tougher! Rougher!"
His act fell from him as he began to sob, "Girls are supposed to be tender and smooth! The perfect accompaniment to Silky Darlings!"
" 'Silky darlings'?" Akane gasped. "Dad called my lingerie that when he said I shouldn't bring any on the camping trip."
"You didn't listen to him, did you? Did you!? Did you!?" the little man pathetically pleaded. "How could any student of mine so betray their master like that!?"
"Sure!" the redhead scoffed. "Next you'll be saying you're my old man's master, too."
"I don't know who your father is. Maybe you need a new one–Come to papa!" he cried, leaping for her once again!
Prepared, Ranma stepped aside at the last second. And the attacker disappeared down the steep side of the mountain. But, again, not for long. "He's like a bad sen coin, always popping up again."
"Ha, ha! You can't be rid of me that way. I know mid-air maneuvering techniques!"
"So do I." And Ranma leaped off the mountain only to jump back on it.
"I can't," Akane grumbled.
"Soun always was afraid of heights." To the buxom redhead, he said, "I recognize that style! You learned them from the Anything-Goes School!"
"The Saotome School."
"Genma Saotome(?)! Oh, the heartless and cruel enemy of femininity!" he said, clutching at where his own heart was supposed to be.
"Pop is all that."
" 'Pop'? In the metaphorical sense? Or did he adopt you? Either way, he really is heartless and cruel–Ow!"
"Get new material, you stale old man."
"Rotten seems more like it," Akane said.
"As much as I hate to say it, I am his child. (Though I do wonder sometimes why I don't look more like him. Just lucky, I guess.")
"You can't be! The last time I saw Genma was 10½ years ago, his only child was a boy."
"I was a boy!"
"Really? Wow! I had heard about advances in sex change surgery and therapy, but I never imaged they could result in such a hot-looking cutey a vampire can be fooled!"
"Hhm, mm," Ranma loved the compliment and posed to show off the package. "I am cute…maybe hot. But the truth is I'm supposed to be cursed. Not that I feel cursed, right now."
"Cursed?" the man's eyes shifted around as he searched his memory for, "...Jusenkyo? And here I ran away from the cold springs after seeing a Yeti-Bull-Crane-Eel sort of baby. Thar reminds me, I haven't seen Rakkyosai since we were there." He shook his head in regret.
Then shook his head to clear it. "I must find out how real of a woman you are!"
Ranma had had enough! But he dodged her blow after blows far too easily; her only success was keeping him far enough away that she didn't get groped! Just barely! His grabby little hands were getting closer and closer! What could she do!? What other tactic was available!?
She had an inspiration: An perspective she probably wouldn't have had if she still felt she was meant to be a guy. Despite what a guy would think, women, especially one who with the size of her boobs, were not top-heavy. Most of their mass was below their narrow waists. She could do more damage with it than through her relatively weaker upper body strength.
And the pervert was short–shorter than even the girl-midget she was! Her feet was closer to his head than her fists, shaving off deciseconds of reaction time! It should be attacking him from a different angle than he was expecting as a top-heavy male!
She stomped him!! And she didn't stop trampling him until he was a crumpled heap at her feet. The feet that had made her the victor!
"I knew you could do it, Ranma!" Akane told her friend. "Here! I was ready to use this as a lasso if you couldn't." She was holding out a rope with wards tied to it. It took a moment for Ranma to see that it came from the remains of the strands of the snapped, cable-thick rope that been used to keep the dirty, old man trapped behind the boulder.
"Now what do we do with him?" Akane asked after he was bound tightly. "Carry him down the hill?"
"I bet he'd still find a way to molest us!" Ranma told her.
"I don't think even Nabiki'd take that bet," Akane agreed.
"We'll get him down the mountain another way." She took him to the cliff side, telling him, "You can't use mid-air techniques now." And she dropped him.
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Happosai is, of course, weaker here than when he was first seen in the manga and anime. On his travel to Soun's house, he had had the time to get his energy back. (A better excuse for why he didn't follow through on his Demon-Head battle aura attack in his first duel with (male-)Ranma was because he had forgotten how weak he still was. Running into the girls PE locker room was just a, fun for him, cover-up.)
There was a number of reasons Happosai sensed the Tendō aura in Akane but not the Saotome aura in Ranma. First, he knew Soun had a daughter of her age, but Genma hadn't had. And, two, perhaps, Ranma isn't fully Saotome, when in cursed form.