Son Turned Daughter, Chapter 63
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 63
Benten of the Seven Lucky Gods, Patron God of the Honorary Women Heroes, was casually sitting nude, looking into hot spring water of the Cat Cafe's basement pool. "It was an amusing prank of mine, wasn't it?" she chuckled. Then she almost giggled. "But why a mangaka was drawing Maomolin that a bug brought to Japan, I have no idea. Creative types can be so mysterious. I'm the God of Flow, not the God of Source.
"Yet." A frown came to the face of the God of Female Beauty. She was tempted to hum "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For".
Instead, she took on the smile of a committed gambler and looked again into the scrying water. "The oversoul directing her Kasumi Tendō self, should be giving the fighters a way to see the bugs."
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Ryōga, Ukyo and Ranma saw the confused Furinkan High students who had a minute or less ago had been half-human you-name-it yōkai begin, one by one, to become monsters again. Same monsters, different teens and teachers. Ranma played the same card as s/he had before, a new ability that s/he was inspired to call Otoshi-neko Blasts. It did have the feel of a fight against his ailurophobia, his weakness.
But, again, the people s/he had come to know these last couple of weeks become the unwanted again!
As s/he paused in frustration, s/he noticed her iron corset vibrating. It felt like somebody "singing". It was familiar. Yes, s/he was almost sure it was the same as what s/he had felt in The Battle of Fine Dining.
Yes! There, the Chardin clan members had been exorcised of the monsters possessing them! S/he had to pay attention to the song s/he heard in her gut and breast - now!
S/he saw what was what looked like, uh, hairy, ghost, insects, bunnies?
No! Don t think - ACT! S/he attacked them with her fists and feet and discovered that they were as fragile as dust!
But they were agile. It often took several tries to poof them.
"What's Ran-kun doing?" Ukyo asked.
"I don't know," Ryōga told her. "It looks–Watch out!" he yelled was the redhead missed kicking nothing and awkwardly headed towards her. He threw himself between them. The girl in the iron corset and her underwear nearly toppled him before relaunching herself.
But he now recognized a familiar tune(?) Yes, it was similar to the one he had heard just before his wish was granted and he stopped being cursed to be a delicious big. It was something he was almost certain he could trust.
"Aa! What are those bugs!?"
"Don't ask, just start hitting, Ryōga!" Ranma told him.
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Benten swished the pool water between the two Ranma parties. As she expected from anybody worthy to be Honorary Women Warriors, they soon had their sectors of responsibilities secured. The oversouls of Kasumi and Pearl-san had taken care of everything else. As for any of the bugs that wanted to spread to Greater Tokyo and the larger world, she herself had eliminated. Of course, it had been mainly through luck.
She no longer was sitting casually. She was now prepared for the next, and in many ways, most crucial part of her plan for Ranma. She held in her hands…
"I knew I'd find you here!" Cologne exclaimed, staff-hopping down the basement stairs.
"I am the God of Flow." Benten was unimpressed by the Elder's deductive abilities. "And this is a hot spring." Still water. Now that was another form of matter.
"You have no regret for what you had unleashed?! Why had I ever helped you when you had lost your bet to Daikokuten!?" She cussed that she couldn't even say, Dà liào tiān for the rival goddess's name, as Benten was refusing to hear anything but Japanese.
"Because you were my luck. And you still are," she smiled is a pleased way that just irritated the woman further. "After all, you did introduce me to the the people who will redefine reality? Ranma Saotome, in particular." And she tossed the two mirrors into the pool of water.
"What were those?!" Cologne demanded to know.
"One was the Nanban Mirror."
"The Nanban Mirror?! One of the great treasures Happosai stole from our tribe?!"
"The treasure the tribe stole from Tibetans, that they stole from the Kyrgyz, that they stole from the Persians, that…"
"No more games! What was the other!?"
"Its mate, the Kiraban Mirror."
"The northern half of the Nishiban!?"
"Yes. But unlike the southern half, this time traveling artifact isn't activated by tears."
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Ukyo and Ryōga were off searching for any others that needed blasting.
Keeping everybody at viewing distance, Ranma's vision changed briefly. It was like a something had been dropped in a reflecting pool. S/he even had to wipe away a tear.
"Ungh…," Daisuke groaned as he came out of his confusion and tried to reestablish his reality. It came into sharper focus when he saw, "Ranma-chan is in her lingerie!"
"And a corset!" Hiroshi grinned. "Fetish-worthy!"
That got the attention of their more violent rivals, the once and reviving "hentai horde". The bugs had taken most of the damage while possessing them. But not all. Still, their sports clubs had the ethos of Fight hurt! Martial arts imitates life!
But imitating life included recognizing social classes: "Any who would think to harm but a lock of this distressed damsel will have to face my blade!" Tatewaki Kuno threatened. He was in his usual kendo uniform. But he had a real sword. A katana. And it wasn't just any samurai sword. "Forged by Masamune, wielded by Jubei. The most valued of antiques. Worth not a small fortune."
Ranma felt the Something. The Something! S/he was doomed! Kuno wasn't as bad as his dad - and neither were as bad news as Kodachi - but still…! S/he had started feeling all male! The he in her was didn't want to become a concubine or, worse, a wife! It was making him sick. But s/he seemed as cursed as his mother was: To fall and stay in love with an idiot with martial arts skills! And there seemed to be nothing s/he could do about it! If only…
If only…
If…
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S/he was suddenly in the Tendō house? More confusing, s/he wasn't the only short, busty redhead there. With Nabiki and Akane close by and Kasumi further back, her twin was dressed in a plain but elegant blouse and slacks pinned up at the ankles.
"...Ranma will only be a girl at school!" Akane insisted.
It sounded so sincere. She wasn't the Akane she had come to know recently.
Her twin looked out the open door to the garden. Outside, a panda was struggling to be free of the tire that had been shoved around it, trapping its forelegs. It was helplessly hanging from a tree upside down by a chain around its ankles. It all seemed very familiar…
S/he remembered! This is what had happened on the second day after coming to the Tendō's, after the first day at Furinkan, after a truce with the Megumi gang had been agreed to! S/he…s/he had…. gone back in time?
Time! It HAD to be the fault of that time bug that had messed with his(then her) and Ukyo's Dragon Blast training!
S/he cussed out loud. Loudly.
None of them heard her. The other her said, frowning, "I 'm changin' into my guy clothes, now that Kasumi says she's washed them."
"Why don't you go next door and take a soak in the furo," Kasumi suggested. "It is good for relaxing."
"They were the hot tubs before there were hot tubs!" Nabiki grinned.
"Nabiki!" Akane said with a warning tone. "You will not bathe with Ranma!
"What if I wear a bikini? They do that in hot tubs and…"
"Ranma, go. I'll protect you from my boycrazy sister!" Akane told her.
Ranma-kun now had a choice: Follow himself when he is a girl or stay out here with real girls, the Sisters.
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"The Mirrors are still there! At the bottom of the pool." Cologne looked down into titled pool. (The hot spring water flowing from a statue.)
"I have used my divination skills to turn this into scrying water. The reflections are not ours, but those of another."
"I know how scrying works! I am not a child!" the Elder told the annoying god.
"Then you know it creates a link. And the mirrors are now at the center of the link. They do not have to be there in the past with the traveler. They are still effective and effecting."
"The key to using the Nanban Mirror is tears. If a tear falls on it, it will take them to a different time and place," Cologne thought out loud, trying to find a tactic that would bring her Cuīhuàjì back. The last thing she wanted to see was the goddess from becoming even more powerful by being a Cuīhuàjì in her own right. Akane, Shampoo and Ukyo were Ranma's Fàngkāi, but there was a chance Ranma could, then, become the Fàngkāi to the higher-level Benten!
Benten, of course, understood what the mortal was attempting. But what could she really do(?) After all, the odds were always in her own favor. She was, after all, one of the Seven Lucky Gods. The only female one. (A sour note, there. But, still) she chuckled, "No tear can fall on it while it is under the water."
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Ranma went past the laundry room and, after gratefully getting nude out of the girl things, went into the furoroom. Ranma-kun watched herself strip…
S/he flashed onto the differences between her body and the body s/he had been born and raised in. He was trained to near total martial-arts awareness of his body. His body. Male. Firm. Wide with muscles. Tall. Longer reach: arms and legs. More mass, able to deliver powerful blows.
Less vulnerable. Not soft and smooth looking.
Man! This very cute girl was totally vulnerable. She didn't even know he, uh, s/he was there, looking at her like an invisible pervert, a….
But s/he wasn't like that. This was her body, after all! And s/he had stripped like this almost a hundred times since s/he had become cursed. It was her that had stripped exactly like this, at exactly in this place, at exactly this time back in the past. S/he wasn't a pervert.
But why was s/he noticing just how cute she herself was. Utterly. And a shortstack – No! S/he definitely didn't have a big butt! And neither did the naked herself s/he was gazing at. (Look at that ass move against each other…)
Onna-Ranma opened the furoroom door. And didn't close it. It wasn't a mistake (though it provoked otoko-Ranma-kun into thinking it was an invitation). S/he knew how immodest he and she could be and how Akane and the other Sisters had given her little reason hide her body up till then (and, come to think of it, even afterwards). S/he could look right in. walk right in.
"Oh, cold!" onna-Ranma said as she sat on the shower stool and sprayed herself with cold water so she could lather herself clean before entering the hot soaking furo tub.
But Ranma-kun was already on her way out the laundry room door. Her tap panties were already too damp for her liking. S/he had to fight - and mean it! - giving in to seeing what sex was like before s/he knew what it was like as a guy! S/he WAS a guy! S/he had never been more certain - more certain than even before he was cursed with this - and her, the naked girl in the shower - that s/he was a he: Ranma - male name - Saotome was always meant to be male! The female body was a lie!
S/he couldn't give in. Absolutely, Positively: Couldn't give in before she experienced sex as a guy! What if sex as a girl was better as a girl, her Male Self could lose the war! And s/he would be a different person. A Ran. A Ranko.
And, besides, there was something bothering her. It had started with the Red Hot Ninjas. It had really got to him to have women after him who didn't look the way women are supposed to look. Bothered him in ways he or she had never been bothered before. It had made her feel intolerant. Shouldn't s/he feel the same way about himself? Admittedly s/he was cursed with a much better looking face and body, but it was still a lie.
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"No tears for the Nanban Mirror," Cologne said, shifting her attention. "What about the Kitaban down there in the water beside it? What is the key to activating it?"
"The Kitaban is the North to the South of the Nanban, so it is the mirror opposite of tears."
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The Nishiban Mirror and its Kitaban half are first found in this chapter. The Nanban Mirror is first found in the S3E15 "Back to the Happosai!".
Going back in time to see why Ukyo was in love with Ranma since she was six (and why we never heard anything about her mama), reminded me of what I had originally wanted to do with the story. This is another chance or me to explore what hadn't been done before. And, besides, how can Ranma really be the kind of "leader woman" that the Honorary Women Heroes need if the he of the two halves hasn't become totally empathetic (though maybe not sympathetic) to their needs. In these stories the fully awakened male Ranma will have to observe her-his past history and decide to accept it or change it it. There is a way for the male-in-mind Ranma to change her-his past. Will he? Will she?
A reminder: Benten because of her being a shifting and mutating godliness, she is like a game's glitchy character: able to access and manipulate other data in the system. But the Yggdrasil System manages all of the multiverse.