Watermelon Girl
by Chaos Orchid ← Ron Dow75
Sacred Kasumi
"Of course, you could give up your claim on the child and let Kasumi pretend to be its mother.
"However…then both you will have to leave town for at least five months. Or whenever you can no longer hide your baby bump, which is around the fourth month, I think. And what's more, Kasumi herself would have to join you in exile. Either that or wear something that will give people the impression she is, in fact, pregnant. And she would have to do this for five months.
"To further throw a possible monkey wrench into the works is a what if: What if Kasumi herself becomes pregnant?" Nabiki held up a halt gesture (her other hand held the second jira drink), "I cannot say it will definitely happen, but once married, our good doctor may well lose his inhibitions towards our 'sacred' sister and be unable to keep himself from 'profaning' her sanctuary."
"He, he wouldn't!" Akane insisted! "Not Dr. Tōfū!"
Her father wailed, "Kasumi! My poor daughter!"
While they carried on, Nabiki covered an ear to them and leaned towards Ranma, "Can you see why the Doctor goes insane around Kasumi? Even my beloved family worships her."
Even after having spent a few months around Kasumi, Ranma also felt she was too pure and innocent to be vulgar around. In fact s/he felt the urge to shut the ice queen up when she said, "So imagine the conflict when a man with a vow of celibacy gets a raging lust around the living idol of a goddess. 'I want to, I shouldn't, I need to, I mustn't', rinse and repeat, again and again."
Feeling dirty, Ranma left Nabiki. After yelling at her sister for getting something wrong, Akane joined her.
Meanwhile, the head of the family continued his crying fit. Nabiki tried to talk him back to reality, "Oh, Daddy. You're going to be caught in an emotional loop like Tōfū if you don't come to terms that Kasumi is going to be doing the dirty deed some day." And she glanced after those two leaving her, "And some day soon."
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"I can't talk to Kasumi, now," Ranma said, slumped over as s/he walked. "It would bring shame on both of us." If one person loses face, the other person does, too.
"That's right!" Akane stood upright, and raising a fist in emphasis. "Kasumi and Dr. Tōfū should not become involved in our problem! She can give us lessons on how to be a mother, but I will not let her become a mother!"
"Sea! Sea, you're an idiot!" yelled an idiot around 26 years old. Before he was hit by a wave. When it retreated away from the beach, the man was covered in spiny sea urchins. Everybody ignored him.
The pigtailed girl was still in her skimpy, green bikini, while Akane, the one not pregnant, wore the watermelon, maternity cover-up. The panda only had on a wide-brimmed sun hat. But it was holding up a sign that read, [Kasumi, HELP!]
"Come, children!" said the 19-year old in a green bikini. "Let's give Mr. Panda a nap time, too!" Some of the preschoolers were cranky and wanted to argue with their temporary caregiver.
The redhead blinked. "Kasumi's wearing a bikini a lot like mine. I, I bought it 'cuz it was revealin'" It seemed like it should be out of character for her.
Akane frowned at Ranma, "Kasumi has the feminine modesty and grace for it not to seem tacky. Unlike you."
Kasumi called out, "Ranma! Akane! Please stop that little boy!"
It was a challenge, so s/he leaped in front of the boy trying to escape toward the waves with his little pail. He was covered with a greasy sunscreen and he slipped from her and ran again. S/he grabbed him by the back of his trunks, unintentionally giving him a wedgie. The boy reacted by crying and hitting her with his pail. Ranma groaned, "Is this what it's gonna be like bein' a mother?"
Kasumi rescued them when she came up with the handful of kids she was minding. "Thank you, Ranma!"
To the kids, she said, "There are your grandmothers and mothers eating in front of that cafe! Go to them, now!"
The cranky boy still didn't want to leave his play on the beach. "Come with Big Sister, Momotarō," she smiled, scooping him gently, an arm under his seat.
The redhead stood there, watching. Seeing that, "She seems like a natural mom." A mom with no kids of her own.
"Yes, she does," Akane said. Again she had mixed feelings. She was proud of her big sister; she was jealous that she herself was nowhere near to being as accomplished in the marital arts. Now, she also was too keenly aware she couldn't do the maternal arts, either.
When the ladies who had been given a break from their children thanked her, Kasumi said, "It was really no bother at all." , "I was happy to do it." , "Where did you get the idea I should be paid?" , "I'm not a babysitter." , "Think of me as an honorary sister and granddaughter. And I was honored to have helped you," she said, bowing again.
"Babysitter?" Ranma asked. She understood enough English to get a weird idea. Where babies treated like a hen treats her eggs?
"It's a Western idea," Akane answered, "It's for those who can't rely on their relatives."
"So, all I got is,..." S/he looked out at the beach and a certain panda.
"No!" s/he yelled! "I won't leave the kid alone with the idiot! I'll be stuck havin' it with me all the time if I hafta!" Even sitting on it?
"Ranma. You have my family. After all, I am the, the…." the 'father'." Akane thought of how a father should respond in a situation like this. The paternal arts. She, hesitantly, cringing at unintended implications bystanders could think if she reached out and hugged the pigtailed girl–
Missed!
The redhead was already on the move, "Right! I have big sister Kasumi!"
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The Blessings of the Kami
The Prize for becoming the "Watermelon Girl of 1992" (and Akane being, technically, the "Watermelon Man") were Three Days and Two Nights at an inn of the beachside village. The room was free.
The meals weren't. Nothing else was. They were given a few coupons. Mostly for tourist trinkets and other things this remote place found hard to sell. The Tendō and Saotome families decided to spend their remaining funds on the train trip back to Nerima.
But even in a land of self-identified atheists, visiting ritual sites were important. That meant the Nerima party felt called upon to first pay respects to the Shintō shrine of Sakura-sensei, its priestess and a nurse-practitioner. None of them wanted to see the Buddhist monk Sakuranbo. Sakura could be written "Cherry Blossom"; Sakuranbo could mean "Cherry", but it could also be written "Deranged monk". No wonder he preferred people called him by the English name of, Cherry .
And, of course, he was the first one they met after climbing the 81 steps to top of the shrine's hill. "9 times 9, nine 9s," Soun laughed nervously. " '9' symbolically represents misfortune . It is just a coincident!" Though he didn't sound convinced.
"Misfortune is of your own making!" the Buddhist monk pronounced.
WHACK! Ranma hit him on top of his bald head. "My misfortune was tryin' to help that idiot Kunō! I shoulda let that Great Watermelon thump him hard for every watermelon he destroyed in practicin' that stupid Kendō Watermelon Piñata Technique!" Because of that training, he had lost his memories of her and his inhibitions against harming girls! Even his "Second One-and-Only Love"l! S/he was still shaken by the whole thing! S/he hadn't been so absolutely intimidated since Shampoo had chased her after giving her the Kiss of Death.
Speak of a demon, "The Pigtailed Girl!" you-know-who appeared, as always, in his Kendō uniform. "It is a fortunate…" ("Mis-fortunate," Ranma muttered) "...that we should meet at this time as I was about to depart and embark on my journey back to my fiefdom of Nerima."
"You're going back!?(!)" Genma's eyes became calculating.
"Don't you even say it, Old Man!" the redhead warned.
"Then I'll say it," said Nabiki.
"Don't you dare!" Akane warned her!
"Then you had better come with us to see that I don't tell him anything you don't want me to say to him," she grinned. She looked like the cat that gotten the cream. And Ranma hated cats.
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They all did visit the shrine, and did the water purification ritual. It was simple: hands and mouth. But if Ranma wasn't stuck as being girl, there was no way he* could have remained a guy even at the start. It seemed as if even the kami were conspiring against his* guy self.
Under Kunō's watchful eyes, everybody felt obliged to donate a coin to the collection box in front of the shrine. The smallest coin was usually considered sufficient, a token of respect. Kunō, though, had to show off his status; he emptied a bag of coins and bills into the tamaguri.
No priestess was required. They met Sakura-sensei in her home on the Shrine compound. Her belly was slightly swollen. But it wasn't because she was pregnant. Before her was a table like the one at the Tendō house, only larger. On top of it was the obvious remains of a multi-course meal. Garbage, now. She patted her belly and gloated, "I finished off most of the French cuisine! That's what you get for trying to be inscrutable, Uncle!"
"We have a whole year of fine dining from the Le Belle France restaurant." Cherry's face and voice didn't want to betray his disappointment in losing the eating contest to his niece, yet it was still there.
"And I will see that is delivered from Chiba, too," Kunō vowed. "A contract was made and must be honored. I freely admit the consequences were my own error in bringing a love potion to a fertility god."
"It is good for you that you do admit it," Sakura-sensei said to him. "I will curse you if you don't !"
"Uh, of course, Practitioner of the Summoning Arts," Kunō paled. "Now that my shame is seen and magnanimously overlooked, I wish to make a donation to this shrine. I wish to purchase the most sanctified of your omamori amulets. Chief among them, of course, is the kami blessing for safe birth!"
The priestess looked at the pigtailed girl. "Will it be wasted if I give you a Small Depot of Kami? The protective Omamori may be simply tokens of best wishes. But not at this shrine! The sachets are genuine! They actually are concentration points of the countless ya-o-yorozu no kami!"
"I have to keep kami near me?!"
"Only until you have given birth. After that, there are other omamori, activated by other prayers."
"And if I don't?"
"I cannot guarantee a safe birth."
Ah, man! If s/he didn't take the amulet, would the kami be insulted and curse her? Sounding as casual as s/he could, s/he said, "Give me it. I can decide later if I'll keep it. Uh, I won't throw it away." Could s/he get away with respectfully burying it at a cemetery?
Sakura-sensei had the amulet ready, of course: She had performed a ceremony and on the pure paper carefully written the prayer that instructed and defined the summoned kami. This was then put in a small bag with a string attached.
The plastic covered the silk sachet with the words "safe birth" brocaded on it was a little longer than Ranma's small girl palm. S/he just took it and stared at it. This seemed to make her condition official. It was now a matter between her and the spirit world. More than just fruit were going to enforce her pregnancy. Nine whole months of it. And then….
"Now I shall also endow handsomely for an omamori for the protection of the father. Of course, I–"
"I'm the father!" Akane was the most surprised at the vehemence she had said the words! But, but she had yet to truly feel that intensely(!) In fact, she still felt numb to it. Still in shock.
"Of that I am only too aware, my first one-and-only, Akane. That is what makes your child so special to me. It is the union of the two I most deeply care about.
"Therefore the omamori I wish for myself is the one for shinkyōyaku."
Even Nabiki took seconds to process it. "What the West calls a godfather!?(?)"
"It is more than a simple godparent," Soun said.
"Oh, my!"
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NOTE:
I like the idea I had in "Son Turned Daughter" and can see this version of Kasumi as not knowing she is the human version of Belldandy of "Ah, My Goddess". Their uniting soul, Holy Bell, is sacred, indeed.
The 26-year old is this world's Ryuunosuke Fujinami of "Urusei Yatsura". She was the first regular character with gender issues taken seriously. She can be seen as Rumiko Takahashi's first version of Ranma. In canon, Ryuunosuke had an unwanted fiancée, Nagisa Shiowatari. Since 'she' was actually a guy with gender issues of his own, a story waits to be written where it is Ryunnosuke that becomes pregnant.
Kasumi's skimpy, green bikini is the same one she wears in S07E20, "Battle for Miss Beachside".
Kami theology:
There are considered to be three main variations or levels of kami: Amatsu-kami (天津神, the heavenly deities), Kunitsu-kami (国津神, the gods of the earthly realm), and ya-o-yorozu no kami (八百万の神, countless kami)
"Kami" can be either plural or singular…or both. In my interpretation, the last is one heaven-and-earth spanning spirit that needs a soul or souls to attach it to something in the physical world to gain awareness of the physical world around it. That part of the Greater Kami becomes almost an individual, then. They become countless because the number existing at any one time is always changing.
More clarifications will follow.