Son Turned Daughter, Chapter 56
Son Turned Daughter: Just Girl Friends is the 1st part of this series.
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 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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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 56
It was twilight and Ranma was just about to enter his tent when it began raining. "Man!" he cursed. Then he realized he wan't cursed: He was still a young man!(?)! "Benten's treatment!" And his grin broke his face! She had said no moving water would be able to touch him! And it was true: His clothes were wet, but he himself felt dry! "I ain't gonna be a girl!" He practically whooped! And he closed his eyes and reveled in the feel of his natural-born body….
"Idiot," Ukyo said. "I can't believe you've been standing outside in the rain all night."
"What?" Opening his eyes, he saw she was cooking okonomiyaki on her portable, propane griddle.
"Uh, you're cookin' in the rain?"
"Like I said: idiot. It's not raining."
"But it is!" He could see the shower! …But he could also see that it was morning.
Cologne emerged from her and Ukyo's tent. "Bugs!" she cursed angrily under her breath.
"Where!?" Ukyo and Ranma where too familiar with the vermin.
"I'll take care of them," she told them. Her problem was that she sensed two of them. Which one to attack first!? The one closest to Ranma, the would-be Fàngkāi of fàngkāi?
She leaped and the tip of her staff landed on it perfectly! It instantly puffed into a dust cloud and blew away. The rain stopped instantly.
But the second had time to escape her senses! What piece of reality was it interfering with!?
"Where'd the rain go?" Not only was the ground (and his clothes) was barely wet, there wasn't a cloud in the blue sky.
"It stopped early last night, idiot." Ukyo's smile hoped to tell him 'idiot' was just a friendly jab. "You thought it was raining until just now? You must have been sleepwalking a dream."
"I, I guess you're right." Only he hadn't sleepwalked before. Sleepfighting, yes.
But he couldn't deny he felt rested. He dropped that thought for that of, "Breakfast!"
"(Benten)," Cologne muttered to herself. She knew the goddess would risk disaster by invoking 'computer bugs'. The more she called into existence, the greater the chance she had to having the one or ones that would be attacking reality in the way she, the "Goddess of Art", wanted. The Elder had no doubt she had sent those to them. What other ones had inadvertently come with those was just the chance the sole goddess of the Seven Lucky Gods took. Just because the odds were in her favor didn't mean she always won her bet. And if she did, others could be unlucky.
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Ranma didn't remember how the old woman had stolen his okonomiyaki, but the evidence was there: She was taunting him with them before eating them in front of him. The bottomless pit was beginning to feel famished! "Stop that! You're worse than my Old Man at stealin' my food!"
"It is all part of your training."
"That's what HE always says!" he cried out in frustration!
That part of her lesson begun, she focused mainly, now, on her other student, Ukyo Kuonji, "Since we have to be concerned about kunoichi assassins, I will dispense with being totally inscrutable. It's a favorite tactic of Asian sensei to appear to be wise. Though some do understand how to use it to promote Dao enlightenment. And I had better be one of them.
"The Heaven Blast of the Dragon, Hiryū Shōten Ha, is the bringing together of the Dao opposites of Hot and Cold. Each has a role to play in the special technique. Your role, Ukyo-san, is to be cold."
"Cold?! I hate cold! The most comfortable times I have is near my cooking! Look!" And she slammed her hands down on the still hot griddle. And left them there.
"How?" Ranma asked.
Ukyo shrugged. "I guess I just built up an tolerance."
"Excellent!" Cologne praised. "You became one with the Dao of Heat, you can practically become one with it. According to Daoism, you cannot really know one without knowing its opposite. There is no beauty without ugliness, nor ugliness without beauty. You have the promise of being the best at the Heaven Blast I have every taught."
"I, I do?" Ukyo, the realist, dared not believe her. Still….
"You understand it at beyond your subconscious. It is at your proscious! Addition, not subtraction. Your connection to the Dao!"
"Uh, okay. Whatever that means."
"Exactly."
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"I thought you said you wouldn't be Inscrutable!" Ukyo cried out for whateverth time this was!
"And Stop stealin' my food!" Ranma growled as loud as his stomach! Again, he didn't remember how, it was like slices of time were being skipped ([] [] [])!
"Do it again!" their martial arts master demanded!
Again(?) Ranma was a few meters away from Ukyo at her griddle. She was cooking her best recipe: Seafood Supreme! The aroma was overwhelming for islanders like them. Without warning, Ranma attacked!
He dodged the first spatula she threw at him. Then the second. But after each one she used to keep him away, he got closer. She swung her giant spatula at him and he stayed just out of its reach, moving to get behind her. She had to step around her griddle, but still her attacks tried to keep him away.
Until she couldn't! "It goes against my nature!" she cried in emotional turmoil. "This is Ran-chan! Even if he weren't, I'm a street vendor at heart: I want‒desire‒people to taste my soul-satisfying cooking!"
Cologne snatched the okonomiyaki off the griddle at the last second, denying Ranma anything to relieve his starvation! "The Hiryū Shōten Ha requires you to be cold to those feelings! Start again!"
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Once again(!?) Ukyo and Ranma lost their mutual battles!
"I can never be cold towards Ranma!" Ukyo turned angrily at the old ghoul of a crone. "You, I can be!""
"Can you remain cold to one who can calmly give you the Kiss of Death? Feel the icy chill and I shall show you myself how the Heaven Blast of the Dragon is done!" And she stole her battle spatula and bandoleer of spatulas even as she pushed the young woman aside, stepping behind the griddle. "Are you ready to attack me with all of your raw emotions?"
"Oh, you better believe it!" Once more Ranma as at the starting line, a few meters away. Again(?) he attacked, this time with no hesitation or regret! He was totally hot with frustration and anger at this Genma-substitute! Again(?) he was kept from a direct offense by the spatulas, but he was always getting closer and closer, circling his target: The Hot, Mouthwatering, Stomach-delighting okonomiyaki he was hot for!
THERE: He had broken through her defenses. He just had to reach out and‒
‒At the very last second, more suddenly than the eye could follow, Ukyo was in Cologne's place, her arm raised, she and she alone in the eye of the storm‒
‒Again, like when he challenged the ghoul in her restaurant yesterday night, he was torn off the ground and flung like a rag doll! This time it wasn't a whirlwind but a Tornado! High, high into the air…
"The time bug!" Cologne yelled, chasing after the glitch!
Over her shoulder, she also saw another bug. And an open portal.
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Ranma had landed‒hard‒minutes ago(?) His clothes had been ripped by the grit and particles caught up in the tempest.
But now he found himself‒after a struggle‒barely dressed in rags! Every exposed part of his body had at least one‒still moist‒lipstick print, many huge!
Instead of wind, he was being attacked by three…uh…um…uh…
"Age before beauty!"
"No, Mother‒I saw him first!"
"He defeated me, Sister! He belongs to me!"
"Who Are you!?" Ranma cried as panic rose in him!
"Greet Kote, the house mother!" cried the one a ninja-star kimono who looked like a midget Edgar G. Robinson (whoever that was!)
"Greet young Koeda!" cried the one a black ninja-yoroi who looked like skeletal Moe Howard (whoever that was!)
"Greet Kome, our number one girl!" cried the one in a floral ninja-yori who was a hippo-sized woman(?) with lips as big as the rest of her face!
"Together, We are the Red Hot Teahouse Kunoichi!"
Ranma screamed as they came at him again! What was he to do!? This wasn't like the tournament: He, the guy, would have to go against the Code and fight these women (if they really were woman‒And they certainly seemed to want to prove they were!) Either way, his male honor was soon to be violated!
As Cologne's staff came down, the bug and time skipped backwards‒
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More than fear, it was the hero in Ukyo that had kept her absolutely cool and collected: The realist in her told her she had to stay clear-headed and analyze what the Ghoul was doing to her Ranma! Once she understood the lesson, he would no longer have to be tortured! She may even be able to turn the table against the crone fiend!
And then [] [] [] she had been in the coldest place she had ever experienced. But it was all metaphorical. She could be as comfortable with it as she could with the heat of her cooking. It stood, yinyang, both beside and within the opposite other in….what was beyond her understanding…beyond her subconscious(?)…. At her (?)proscious(?)
That enlightenment threatened to freeze her in place. But she had to find out how her man was doing! Was he safe?! She looked up
‒A feminine figure in a masked, purple ninja-yori was descending on her, her sai trident daggers were aiming to stab her!
Ukyo knew she could do the Heaven Blast.
But couldn't: the heart of this kunoichi assassin was too cold!
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Time forward…
Ranma was executing the Saotome Special Technique! Retreating, doing the dodging and hiding while his nemeses were seeking him among the forest of petrified trees! Every glance at his pursuers was enough to renew his desire to escape! Daoism: You do not truly know ugly until you know beauty. And he had seen the ultimate in divine beauty in all her glory! Even Shampoo, Akane and Ukyo were more 'ugly' compared to Benten…
"We meet again, Ranma Saotome."
He screamed in a panic, believing that one of the kunoichi whose special technique was repulsiveness had found him! It would tear him apart as they held onto him!
But, no, it was somebody else. Somebody he had met once before. Where? That's it: The Battle of Fine Dining against the House of Chardin! "You're…."
"Xellos, at your service" he bowed Western style, a hand over his heart….
…in his other hand was, the cracked iron corset?! "No. No! I'm protected from havin' to become a girl! I won't make myself a girl!"
"Your choice." And he tossed the woman's cage into a deep mud puddle.
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Time returned…
"You like my okonomiyaki?"
The woman nodded rhapsodically as she finished off yet another! Never in all her long years had Ukyo seen anybody enjoy her cooking like this! It filled her with a delighted pride! She just had to know the name of this five-star diner. "What is your name, Sugar?"
"Greet Konatsu," she said before remembering to talk without her mouth being full. "Konatsu Kenzan".
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Time skips forward…
The spell broken, the mud that covered the redhead's face and front oozed down over the iron corset s/he was wearing. S/he hated herself for betraying her‒his‒manhood.
But if s/he hadn't, their manhood would have suffered worse: "Hiryū Shōten Ha!"
Three monsters were sent upwards in the Heavenly Blast of the Dragon towards the North Star!
Three normal looking women collapsed to the ground by her feet. They were unconscious, but alive. No longer possessed by the other dimensional beings that swore vengeance against Xellos.
Cologne forgot about the bug as she could only stand in near awe. Her Future-son-in-law, her Future Champion of women champions, a catalyst who could possibly challenge the gods themselves and change the world had mastered one of the more difficult special techniques after being exposed to it only once‒And as its victim! Ranma had gone beyond the proscious and into the subproscious! She had grazed the Middle Dao itself!
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The time-tearing bug and others hopped through the portal the distance-shredding bug had made. On the other side, Cologne briefly saw Benten nude in the basement hot spring. Was the goddess in the present, past, future…or always?
Then she saw a mountain different from the one she, Ukyo-san and Ranma-sama was on. The rip in space was closing and she caught a glimpse of Pearl-san, Akane and…another redheaded Ranma!? What game was the goddess playing?! For a goddess of eloquence, she wasn't. She was being…
…inscrutable!
Just before reality snapped back into place, Cologne had a déjà vu premonition that a sleeping Evil was about to be, has or had been awakened! Or, rather, Another.
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If you look at anime where Ukyo is behind Ucchan's griddle, you will often see her place her hands on it and act as if she is not aware that she is. But she will tell others, like Ryōga, "That's hot, you know."
Konatsu the Kunoichi story arc was not seen in any anime episode, but only in manga Chapters 372-376. It is a Cinderella story with a twist that is right in keeping with Ukyo's luck.
Xellos first and last appeared in Chapter 18: 20, Saved from Fine Dining. Again: He is a monster in human form operating as a sort of policeman: punishing any who unlawfully, by the standards of the monsters who employ him, remain in the non-monster realms. Though, he does appear to have his own agenda. He appears in the light novels, mangas and animes of the series, The Slayers. As in Dragon Slayer/Slave. Its connection to Ranma ½ is that the Japanese seiyū/voice actor Megumi Hayashibara did the voices of both of the protagonists, Lina Inverse and the girl-type Ranma.
The iron corset told Ranma that he was dealing with women who were not unfortunately ugly, but monsters. But who seeing Kome couldn't think she wasn't fully human(?)