Ranma of St. Bacchus, Chapter 09

By Chaos Orchid

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"Team consensus can be right, but it can also be wrong. Know yourself first!"

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MĀRG and Samson

Even as the dorm room door was closing, 'Ran' was untying the jinbei top. (She) wasn't getting nude to be more comfortable; (She) was getting out of anything that blocked her view of (her) changeable body. It was about time (she) checked (her)self out; it had been in (she) literally had no idea how long. (Her) dormmates were right behind her. "What is with you wanting to sashay!?" Junko asked. ("Sashay bad!" Noa, at the end of the line, called out to the inside!)

"It makes sense!" (She) defended (her)self. "If my curse is gonna do the opposite of what I want, I gotta fool it into thinkin' what I don't want is what I want!"

"And that's supposed to make sense?" Junko, her coach, questioned her common sense.

"You think curse think!?" Noa asked.

Yuko the miko answered Noa's question. "If there's a kami is involved with it, yes. Not human thought, but some intelligence.

"But I'm the daughter of a jinja shrine family and that's what I know best when it comes to the arcane. I really don't know if a kami is maintaining the curse."

"I got bruises?" 'Ran' said, looking over her soft body made softer by the splotches. There weren't many, but too many for (her) liking. "But Green Whatever didn't touch me except here on my boob." There was a small puncture that had barely bled before her healing techniques–whatever they were–kicked in. And as long as (she) was there, (she) checked out the undersides of (her) boobs. Discolored, not bruised, but on the way to bruised without healing. "Aw, man! All that bouncin' and floppin' hasn't done them no good. (Not that there was a good to them.)"

"Bruises and worse injuries are things you're going to have to get used to, Ran," Junko said as a pep talk. "It comes with marital arts–I mean, MĀRG. We do compete with dangerous tools."

"And that's why I am so important to Team Spirit," Yuna told her. "I know martial arts beauty techniques that allow we girls not have to worry overly much about having their looks damaged. They can feel they can forget all else and go gung ho for winning."

"I get it; I get it. But I don't feel worried about my looks. I might not even mind this cute face bein' messed up a little. Where's a mirror?" (She) looked around. "There's gotta be one in the bathroom, right?"

She stopped at the door. "It's okay for me to go in here?"

Looking at the wall clock, Junko told her, "Tantō and her crew shouldn't be in there. But that doesn't mean they won't try to go in when it's not their turn."

'Ran' carefully slid the door a crack and peeked in (then up – didn't want any more ninja boobs coming down on top of her head). "As long as they hafta come in that door over there, I'm bettin' I can keep from gettin' hot water on me." (She) did, though, leave (her) dorm's door open.

"Gah! The face looks cuter than it feels… The martial arts makeup helps… No, it don't! Why didn't I notice the glowy lipstick?! …Only it isn't lipstick–And it won't rub off ! …Like the stupid eyeshadow tattoo… That won't even fade like the other dyes are s'pose to… How can I make myself look better… A scar?... There's too much red hair… How about a buzz cut… Stupid French braid! I'm gettin' rid of it!"

"Don't touch the braid!" Yuna cried out, going in to stop her.

"Okay, team," Junko spoke to the other four. "We have to come together and help our new teammate with her problems. You have all seen how valuable she! Even Koachi has seen it!"

Yuko understood why Yamada Ran was a special project of the Mistress of Alchemy. "Only by putting Ran in a position where she's got to obey the team captain can the captain general, Kodachi herself, keep our star, redheaded athlete from competing in the final rounds. Only then can the Black Rose remain the…"Unchallenged Champion of MĀRG"."

"So, Junko, who are you really helping, Ran…or Kodachi?" Mao grinned. Which side would the mischief land on?

"That's not what's important right now! It's going to be up for Ran herself to decide if she's going to obey Kodachi! We just have to get her to that point!"

"Why? " Noa asked. Being a novice of novices to any martial arts, let alone MĀRG, she had questions. "Where you profit?"

"MĀRG has two phases to it, Noa," Yuna said, dragging the redhead 14cm, 5½ inches, shorter than her.

"No fair! No fair! There shouldn't be martial arts tattoos!" 'Ran' protested. "Cute tattoos!? That goes against what martial arts is all about!"

"If you behave yourself, I won't put them on you. And if then if I do and you still won't act like a teammate, I will make them permanent," Yuna warned.

"Nothing wrong with cute tattoos, Ran," Noa tried to reassure her.

"Do you have a cute tattoo?"

"Yes!" Noa beamed for the girl who, she though, probably did need to be cursed so she would act like a girl. She proudly twisted her wrists to show all of the encircling tattoos. "Tattoo of Lucky Charm Bracelet! No loose! Even when battle, stay on! See all cute animals?! Here pig, duck, panda,..."

'Ran' flinched at hearing the word "cat" and looked away so (she) wouldn't have to look at it. "Why didn't I notice it before?"

"Because you were too busy thinking too much on your own self to notice(?)" Yuna brought over a book of stick-on tattoos. "How about this tattoo of a happy face(?)" she threatened. "You need to be."

"It, it can be made permanent!?" 'Ran' stepped away from it in fear. Yuna gave (her) a smile that made (her) shudder.

"Please understand problem of Ran!" Noa asked the others.

"You're right, Noa," Yuko said. "Ran has had be thinking of herself first. She's not only the new girl in school, everything is new to her without her memories."

"Why Ran have no memory!?" Noa wanted to know.

"But Ran's on our team now!" Junko overrode her and went into team-leader mode. "She and we have to think like a team!"

"Team?" 'Ran' couldn't find anything familiar about the word. Had (she) ever been on a real team that weren't one-offs?

"As I was about to tell Noa…and you, Ran,..." Yuna knew it was time to close the book of threats, "There are two phases to MĀRG. In the first, there are four members who participate in a competition. The remaining two are the coach and the tosser."

"Tosser?"

"The Tosser tosses the tools its team members they or the captain may request. I am the usual tosser for this team."

"You?" 'Ran' thought how (she) was stopped from leaping out of a window by an arrow. "Aren't you an archer?"

" 'Tosser' is just a designation. As long as I do not use my bow as a weapon or to launch a weapon, then I can use it to equip my teammates."

"But there is also the Free-For-All competition!" Mao smiled at her memories of them." Anything the MĀRGer can get without leaving the competition area is fair! Even brothers!"

"Is, is second phase?" Noa did not look forward to that part of MĀRG. Well, she didn't look forward to any part, really, but Free-For-All sounded like the worst part!

"The second aspect is when the member of the four with the fewest points takes on the lowest scorer of another team," Yuko said.

" 'Fewest'? 'Lowest score'?" 'Ran' asked.

"It means you have won against your opponent in the least amount of time and effort," coach Junko explained.

"The audience hates that!" Mao smiled. "They want the bloodshed to go on for a long time!"

" 'Bloodshed'," Noa squeaked.

"Mao is exaggerating," Yuna said. "It usually doesn't get that gory."

" 'Usually'?" Noa felt now might be a good time to faint.

"The good news for the coach and tosser is that we, too, have our own time to compete with the other coaches and tossers!" Junko said. And the 4cm, 1½ inch, shorter girl put her arm around Yuna. (Who didn't reciprocate.)

"Or they can switch out with the individual winner!" Mao said. "The coach and tosser are also the replacements when somebody on the four-member team can't play for some reason."

'Ran' nodded. "And the one out has to act as the coach's or tosser's replacement if they're not too badly damaged. I think I'm gettin' the game sense of the sport.

"I still prefer battlin' anything goes free-style." (She's) been saying 'anything goes' a lot lately. Was there a clue there to her missing memories?

No, there it goes missing again. It was like waking up in the middle of a dream and forgetting what just a second ago was very clear to (her). Oh, well, if it were that important, (she) would have other shots at knowing what the words meant to (her) before now.

Her stomach grumbled. It didn't growl, just grumbled. And still, "Wasn't I bribed to eat supper in the school cafeteria?"

"Ran! You know whole school want make you boy!" Noa tried to yell some common sense into her. "They only need hot water!"

"I just gotta have some cold water with me," 'Ran' smiled.

"And when you run out of cold water?" Yuko tried, too. Without yelling.

"Then she relies on us to have her water," Junko sighed.

"You can think like a coach!" 'Ran' smiled at her this time. And maybe it was the first time smiling at them as a group. "Go team!" (she) laughed just for the fun of it. They were on a two-way street, too.

"You have put on jinbei! Don't go nude again!" Noa said, picking up those dropped on the floor.

"I don't gotta do it, yet. When it's suppertime…"

While those two were talking, Junko had gathered the others at the furthest corner of the dorm room. "Yuko, you're our curse expert. We think we've got Ran's female curse figured out. But what about her male curse?"

"That's a stronger curse, all right. I think it's a punishment for wanting to be male. You can't say the tremendous hair growth isn't a punishment!"

"It certainly is," Yuna said, still haunted by what had happened in the salon.

"The hair is probably tied to legends like Samson; you know, where the male strength was concentrated in their hair. Ran probably thought that if she had hair like that, she could be as strong as men. She hates being a petite, after all. Petites aren't even as strong as ordinary woman, usually."

"So, Ran somehow, somewhere discovered a strength-through-hair growth potion?" Yuna asked.

"It backfired on her!" Mao's smile was small and not pleased. "Because she was a girl?"

"That sounds like it," Yuko slowly nodded. "And it sounds like it wasn't just a hair growth potion that gives you strength. It had a reverse curse, a counterbalancing blessing. As much as she didn't want to be a typical girl, the more she's cursed to be one."

"Starting with her body," Junko, too, nodded. "The more she resists coming to the side opposite of the potion, the curvier she becomes."

"You mean she could get boobs bigger than D cups?!" Mao's eyes were wide. She could squeeze into an A cup.

Yuna rolled her shoulders. "I do not understand the women who want large breasts." She was a C cup that might fit into a D cup when her breasts finished growing.

"Then it's agreed?" Junko asked. "We'll help Ran be happy to be a woman!"

"For smaller boobs!" Mao cheered.