Son Turned Daughter, Chapter 23
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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To any who may have saved the originals: I couldn't find Chapters 21, 22 and 23, and I am rewriting them from what I remember of them. They are turning out better than the originals. But those are the only chapters I am doing that way. I will continue to reformat the other chapters. There will be very little change as I am finding that my 60+ chapters are remarkably coherent.
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Chapter 23
Dawn was beginning. It was the usual time the Old Man ("Genma") had made his son spar with him. It had become a ritual. Until Dr. Tōfū had, uh, 'persuaded' him to report to work at the clinic at that time. Ranma had started sparring with Akane, instead. But that was unlikely to happen again. "Sorry, Akane," she said to no one but herself.
She, she was, as he had been caught in a cloudburst. A song came to her:
All over the town, there are tears.
The rain running down my cheeks
You are blurred by,
Because the person over whom
I held the umbrella that rolled away
Is not here.
Tender Rain,
Even rain that's about to freeze from cold,
Is warmer than my heart. November Rain,
Until my tears vanish, don't stop.
Rain...
"Yes," she muttered to herself, "I must be cold-hearted. Leave my *choke* friends and family. I gotta. To protect them. What happened yesterday showed me that. Mom showed me that. It used to be only strangers I hadda worry about in my battles. I was gettin' to know the Tendōs, but they were martial artists, too.
"But mom wasn't. She was put in danger 'cuz a me. Everybody is gonna be put in danger. And all-a 'cuz of my curse. That's the real curse."
She rubbed the tears out of her eyes. "I'm used to bein' with no friends and the only family my Old Man. And now I don't even got him…."
She straightened up and threw her narrow shoulders back into her large traveling pack. "I've graduated from havin' a master. I am my own master! I'm an independent, a rōnin."
A new song came to, one to feed her determination:
Far away,
I want to continue my journey
As i please.
Smiling even in the difficult days,
Far away.
I want to finish this today
Embracing my talent
And heading towards
My infinite dreams.
Get along, try again!
Greater Tokyo was one of the largest metro-areas in the world. Nerima was in its suburbs. It would be a while before she was where she had spent most of his life, rural Japan. She knew how to live off the land there.
Her stomach protested. "Yeah," she told it in sympathy, "natural food don't taste as good as food with a lot of salt and sugar and fat and…." Just saying that made it feel even worse.
She found herself in a shopping street of some small town. It probably wouldn't be until around 10 before most places opened. But there were some vending machines that she could get food from. If she had money. Which she didn't.
But the Saotome School had a wide variety of survival tactics and techniques. It was early, but there were people who had to be up because they worked away from the shops, or they were on their way to some school early for club reasons or just to hang out, or because they couldn't stay at home for their baths. Ranma shucked off her pack in front of the local public bathhouse.
She took out one of the most valuable things she owned. People had tried to steal it, of course, but it had been the prize of many martial arts challenges. That, in fact, was how she had won it, winning against a jerk who thought he could take away a kid's candy just because he was massive.
She pulled the stainless steal, camping bowl until it was no longer collapsed, and set it down on the pavement. "Time to become a busker!"
The little redhead started with some of mid-level martial arts kata exercises as a warm up. She would save the more difficult ones when there was enough gawkers to bother with the effort. The spectacular ones would cost them. And to demonstrate, despite the continuous moves that swished up the air, how fit she was, she went into her spiel, "This is just a small sample of what I'm capable of! I'm a real martial artist! I've fought real battles! I have real special techniques! But I ain't gonna show you 'em until I get a donation!
"Okay, maybe one." She did a somersault and came a few centimeters from a 30-something with a camera and gave a series of rapid punches near the camera. Startled, the guy dropped it away from his eyes, letting it hang loose on the cord around his neck. Only it turned out he became glad he had, giving up on the idea of stills, he could appreciate the motions the small, pigtailed girl's boobs and other jiggly parts were doing. And very up-close.
Ranma didn't like it, but at least got the satisfaction of knowing the other oglers were intimidated. They could look: Only!
But she also knew she would have be periodically intimidating new leerers.
But what had been a tactical advantage just a couple of days ago was now a strategic opportunity. She mostly let her curse's soft parts go where they wanted to go, pulled by momentum and pushing against by inertia. "Don't be fooled by this cute package. I gotta punch that's takin' out a bear! I can leap on your head and walk all over it!"
"Will you!?" asked a man in a business suit and briefcase.
"You serious?"
"I seriously want you to walk on me," the adult said in a creepy way, "in your bare feet. I'll pay you ¥1,000."
"F'get it! I don't step on people for jollies!"
"¥10,000."
"Especially for their own jollies!" It was tempting, but it would be the beginning of the end of his self-respect. And his for hers. This was why Ranma absolutely had to get away from the place where everybody knew his secret. Or any place. She was running from fame. She had no doubt it would lead to infamy. There would be no more honor.
"Good girl!" A woman with a little girl dropped a ¥500 coin into the camping bowl. She nudged a friend and that woman (reluctantly) donated ¥100.
"Thank you!" Those were her first income of the day. She felt happy enough about it to let herself leap into the air. From there, she saw a clump of men casually looking at her, but only as they were walking by. She waved at them, "Look at me up here!" She was able to stay up for 30 seconds. That was impressive enough for them to wander to her.
"Can you do that again?"
"Sure! What's it worth to you?"
She did her mid-air trick after getting five ¥100 coins and one ¥100 bill. And added some powerful kicks, too!
"Why don't you wear a dress?" a man asked (accused?).
"Oh, right! I know some people get their thrills in seeing panties flashed! I'm keepin' my pants on!"
"You wouldn't be a very good at putting on a show if you did," he challenged.
"Wear something with a low neckline, at least." This guy looked enough like the other guy and he could have been his dad. "Show more of your neck, young woman!" Ranma's Chinese hanfu did have a stand-up Mandarin collar.
Geez! One guy wanted to see her legs (and panties?) and one her neck (and cleavage?). But she knew what they really wanted to see of her. (Not understanding about how fetishes worked.) Ranma never had audience interactions like these when she was a guy! Not for the first time did she think it was easier to be a guy. And that was why girls needed the support of other girls. Better, friends.
"Will you look how tacky that tomboy is!" a girl laughed. It wasn't a noble lady's laugh, but it had the same attitude behind it. She was about the same age as Ranma but wasn't wearing a school uniform. She did show her legs with a mini and her cleavage with bandeau. With her were two other girls similarly immodestly dressed. One of their three boyfriends was wearing a school plebe uniforms.
"She thinks she's not cause it's silk!" , "Don't jockeys wear silk?" , "She's short like a jockey!" , "But are any of 'em a shortstack like her!" , "Look, she's not wearing a bra!" , "Maybe she's not wearing nothing under those pants!" , "Her pants are too baggy for her." , "Yeah! *sneer*, they must be her boyfriend's."
The only one in uniform said, "We're going to be late for karate practice!"
"You go, Gakuran! It's not like the law says we have to go to school after we're 15."
"We're going and stay here for a little fun."
"Delinquents!" More than one in the now three handfuls of people agreed.
Now for a real crowd pleaser: "I'll give a lesson! The more money I get, the better the lesson!"
"I'll take you on!" Gakuran volunteered.
"You show her!" his girlfriend told him.
"How about I take all three of you karate amateurs on?"
"You going to let everybody in town think you couldn't beat shortstack-chan!?" challenged the first girl to the boys.
Gakuran attacked first. Ranma easily ducked. The other two boys tried to double team her. She easily ducked them, too. This frustrated them and they went for a triple team! As she was avoiding the karate chops, punches and kicks, she told the bystanders, "It won't be stealin' 'cuz I told 'em the lessons aren't free."
After demonstrating how jujitsu could be better than karate, she reached into their pockets and pulled out what she considered a fair price. She was about to scare away the mean girls–
–Her collapsing bowl snapped, turning itself inside up and tossing up the coins! She saw it was the man who wanted to see her legs and panties had tried to steal them! In a flash, she punched the falling coins before they could land, turning them into projectiles that were going to leave bruises he would see for some time!
As he and the other man ran away, she told them, "Didn't think I could take three out at once so fast?! Thought I'd be distracted, huh!"
There was applause, and more money was added to the now the reset camping bowl.
She then had more than enough for the day, maybe two. But most of the shop stalls around there still had the roller doors down. And she was headed for areas where there probably wouldn't be enough people around to support a busker. She kept up her act.
"Okay! Who else wants to take me on?"
A small bag of coins(?) landed in the bowl, collapsing it. "Shampoo pay for fight Ranma! Ranma no run no more! Fight Shampoo! Accept death with honor!"
The Chinese amazon in all her floral-print terror landed in front of her, one hand using a chui mace to sweep at the onlookers, forcing them to back away and give the two battlers room; the other chui was raised as a threat to the redhead. "Let Shampoo go home to China! Die, Ranma! Die!" Her yellow-and-green chui maceheads – the size of basketballs – were solid metal! They could easily cave-in Ranma's head!
"Sha, Shampoo!" There it was: The threat of cowardice! It had all begun when the panda's paw had grabbed her hand and yanked her away immediately after Shampoo had given her the Kiss of Death! It had been the panda that had fled! And whenever the Old Man went, Ranma had always been made to go, too. When the panda was pop again, he had scolded him, saying it was karma for going against the Code! It didn't matter that he was also a girl at the time. After all, he was a man at heart! And his martial arts sensei kept reminding him of that as they retreated towards Japan! And every time they were lucky to see Shampoo before she could catch them! Which were many. Unable to fight, the redhead felt like a coward. And was turning into one. Right now, it had been kept to when she thought of the unrelenting, Chinese fury!
Frozen, still unable to attack, the girl felt the massive mace coming down on her red hairs. By trained reflexes not intention, Ranma moved aside just enough. Barely. She felt the cold, painted metal press along her cute cheek, down her female neck, against her upper chest and into and off her left boob. Unprepared, she could only stumble backwards, being stopped only by the steel roller door of a shop.
Ranma screamed like a girl when she saw that the other mace was already coming at her! She collapsed into a squat. A great echoing, metal against crashing against metal followed! The girl glanced around and saw that the roller door had been severely buckled, all centered around an indent the size of a basketball.
"Fight! Fight, Weakling! Shampoo gain no honor from death of sub-Miss-type!"
"Submissive?! Who are calling a submissive!?" Ranma was up on her feet, now! Nobody insulted the one thing she WAS great at!
"Shampoo no call Ranma submissive: Shampoo call Ranma sub-Miss-type!" Her chui were ready for action again. But first, she had to say, "Ranma no warrior woman like Shampoo thought when give Kiss of Death!" And she swung, one mace following the first and then the second leading. Her aim was for the heart this time! Arrhythmia was her goal!
Ranma still couldn't bring herself to break the Code. Ever since she had become cursed, she had yet to physically fight a girl! Battle them, yes. Strike them, no. How could she win against the girl who most intimidated her without a breakthrough in her inhibition?!
As she thought, she pushed and pulled against the maceheads, testing how strong Shampoo was, how firm a grip she had on her chui, the level of her fatigue, the amount of ki from the Reservoir she was drawing in,...
"Ranma now make Shampoo more proud to kill! But hit Shampoo! Make Womans Hero Shampoo woman hero!"
"I won't hit you, Shampoo!" Suddenly he understood how to at least neutralize her weapons of choice. The chui weak points were its handles; she just needed to break them! Of course, if she got under or to a side the spheres, she would be bashed….
She leaped on top of both, her feet not too far apart.
But Shampoo was warrior enough to understand what Ranma's tactic was. Straining, almost struggling, but accomplishing, she raised her weapons so their handles were mostly hidden beneath the spheres.
Ranma could have easily hit her in the face. She couldn't hit her. And not just because of the Code. There was something about the determination and pride of who she was in that beautiful face. "You gave me the Kiss of Death. I'm taking it back." And the redhead kissed Shampoo. On the most innocent place she could think of. On the tip of her nose.
The Chinese warrior reacted in shock, dropping her maces. Ranma fell with them, and used her feet to roll them spheres away from her attacker.
On the ground, now, she told her, "Hey, I've had the time and sense to think! I don't have to hit you: I can use jujitsu!"
But her still worrisome opponent was fleeing to the rooftops? And crying?
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Ranma found the advantages of scoring extra food while a cute, busty girl (even one not dressed like the mean girls). But after breakfast and lunch, it was time to return to her hike toward the wilderness. That was where she belonged. After all, the "ma" in Ranma could be written as "Wild".
But first…
Ranma came out of the public bathhouse himself, a guy, male, just the way he like himself. He had almost gotten caught changing, but wasn't.
"Ryōga, look! It's Ranma! Ranma, wait up!" Akane in her dō-gi called. They were each carrying their packs.
"Akane? Ryōga? How'd you find me? I ain't even sure I know where I am?" He said, adjusting his own pack.
"It's what you said about me, Ranma," Ryōga said. "Because I don't know where I am, I can go places other people wouldn't think to go."
"And I just let him not lead the way!" Akane grinned. "But now I am the leader! We can begin our training trip! We will be real martial artists, out testing our skills to battle and survive!" It was obvious to the other two she still lived in the folklore and pop fiction she grew up with as a dōjō child. The two that had had to live reality knew there was little glamor.
Still, "Why not." Ranma could test Ryōga talent for finding him later. "But we're lettin' Ryōga take the lead. I wanna see how good he is at keepin' us lost. I wanna be no place people know me."
"Except us, of course!" Akane smiled.
"Yeah…of course."
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They did get lost. And Ryōga showed them 'lost' was a far too weak of a word to describe his condition. They would take a turn at a town's intersection and find they were on a dirt, country road; getting out of the way of a truck loaded with bales of hay and they stepping onto a railroad track; jump just in time to avoid being hit by a bullet train and they were on the concrete guard railing above a levee; ask for directions and find out you were in Harajuku; …
Looking at the angle of the shadows, Ranma was not very happy. "School's gonna be out soon. I don't feel like seein' a bunch a kids my age." It would remind him of the friends he had started to be making at Fūrinkan. He could no longer have friends.
"I recognize that guy!" Ryōga said. "That's the guy I bit who was forcing himself on you, Ranma."
"You bit Kunō!?" Akane looked at him in a new light.
Ryōga defended his action, "I was pig at the time!"
"Why wasn't Kunō in school?" Akane asked.
"Does that answer your question?" Ranma answered.
"Sasuke! Lummox, you tripped! You could have damaged that masterpiece of art! I should never have entrusted you with something so valuable! –Here! I shall see to it myself that it is given the proper treatment it deserves!" With that he lifted up a flag that hung down, its top attached to a bamboo pole attached to a pole. On the flag was a silk-screened portrait of….
"He really likes your girl, doesn't he, Ranma," Ryōga commented.
"Nabiki!" Akane glowered.
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Dr. Tōfū's clinic was halfway down the block. He had the answer for everything, Akane thought. "Something's bothering you, Ranma."
"Nothing's botherin' me." Even he knew he said it unconvincingly.
"You shouldn't have disappeared on your friends without letting us know why. We were worried and wondered what was happening to you. You could have been hurt and we wouldn't have known! Please, see the doctor."
"He's the one that convinced me to try playin' girl." He shouldn't trust him. Maybe.
"I was cursed, too, Ranma, remember?! I become a pig. I played a pig yesterday in that etiquette contest. But Akane isn't the one who turned me into a pig. I was going to be a pig anyway, just like you are going to be girl even if you're not playing at being a girl. Listen to this doctor.
"Hey, maybe I can talk to him about my pig problem!"
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Ranma came out with a red pigtail and a spare, "emergency" dress Kasumi had altered to fit the girl. "Man! I find that hard to believe: There are guys that want to be a girl(?)!"
"But no one wants to be a pig!"
"Maybe furries?" Akane suggested, hoping to ease Ryōga's hurt.
"But the 'Famous' Accursed Training Ground isn't famous, is it(?)!" Ranma continued to try and grasp what the doc had told him. He wasn't going to be famous? Maybe yes; but not because of the curse? "If people did know about it, it'd be probably the number one tourist place in the world, he said. Even if they didn't want to change into a girl…" ("Or boy," Akane added) "...they could maybe get a body that had something they didn't. Like eyes that could see or ears that could hear. The Doc even said there are stories of people dunkin' other people in Jusenkyo water and getting the other one's skills!"
"And their appearance. The perfect disguise!" Akane said. "But Dr. Tōfū said he wasn't sure. They could just be interesting stories."
"I'd like to go back and stop going pig."
"But the Doc warned us: Once you're cursed the first time, when you get cursed again, it adds the second curse to your first! It doesn't take the first away!"
"But he said there may be a way that you can uncurse yourself by being re-cursed if you do it in the right way," Akane reminded them. "It might even be the cure! But he's still doing research."
"There's a lot of stories around something that isn't supposed to be famous!" Ryōga cried out in frustration! Why couldn't there be a clear answer!?
"Maybe they were made up by that Chinese guide to entertain the suckers stupid enough to come there," Ranma frowned.
"Shouldn't he saved it for the tourists?" Then Ryōga realized. "Oh, there are no tourists."
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The Tendō gate had one gate looked ready to topple, but didn't because of the bottom hinge hadn't been broken; the on the other side, the gate was against the inside fortress wall. There could be no doubt they double gate had taken a great blow!
The front door of the Tendō house had suffered worse: what left of it was kindling.
"Mom!" Ranma cried, racing into the house. Please, please! She screamed in her head. Please, don't tell her the premonition was right! It was supposed to Not happen if she had stayed!
Where, Where!?
"Is that you, Son?"
She raced to the common room!
There was her mother, calmly drinking tea with…Shampoo?
The Chinese amazon looked up her. "Ranma! Ranma Saotome, have date with Shampoo!" It was a threat.
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Megumi Hayashibara was the the girl Ranma's voice actress. She was also a singer. "November Rain" started with Akane slapping Ranma. "Try again" was sung when she was play The Slayers Lina Inverse. Xellos was from that anime series.