Ranma of St. Bacchus, Chapter 11
By Chaos Orchid
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"The Chinese say a son and heir is like a dragon. Don't be like a dragon: Be yourself!"
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The Dragon Takes Wings!
"Aw, man! I can't even go to the toilet without a girl in there tryin' to get hot water on me!" said the small redhead as (she) reentered the main St. Hebereke building. "I gotta find out if the water in the sinks're hot enough to make me lose my hair.
"Maybe I should just get it over with and go bald. I wouldn't be so cute, now, would I(?)" But there was a memory that, for once (she) didn't want. It had something to do with a man with a bandanna. Underneath that was a bald head. And in that bald head….
"No! I ain't never gonna go bald if I can help it! I won't be like that! I'd be an idiot" too.
(She) finally noticed the girls in the main hall on the first floor staring, talking, whispering and giggling and breaking out with bursts of laughter. (Her) martial arts senses told (her) they were not an immediate threat. They weren't armed with hot water.
(She) finally realized what they were looking at – and where the adults averted their eyes from: (her) jinbei, soft hemp pants.
"Oh, no, no, no!" Even for somebody with no feminine modesty, it was a humiliation for everybody to know (she) had pissed in (her) pants. Stupid girl body!
Escaping from the public toilet, (she) had forgotten to remember to keep a tight grip on (her) full bladder. A part of (her) had to be devoted to constantly using or relaxing (her) girl muscles just to keep or release her flow. Muscles (she) definitely did not like being reminded of!
Guys, males, …her cursed body(?), they had it so much easier when it came to that basic of life. They didn't have to squat! Most of the time. "Aw, man! I hope no girl's tryin' to make a man outta me when I'm goin' for a dump."
And how did (she) know about the differences in fe/male plumbing? "I must have a brother I can't remember. We must've told each other lots of things most guys and girls don't talk about. I miss him, even though I can't remember him."
"Ran!" (she) heard (her) roommates call out to (her).
(She) was not happy to hear from them. "Now everybody starrin' at my accident's gonna know who it happened to," (she) grumbled, turning red.
"We have bad news for you!" Junko announced.
"Worse news?" (She) looked down at her wet stain.
"Room 12 knows about your whisker! OW!" Mao cried out as she was poked with an arrow by Yuna.
"But they don't yet know what it is that keeps your male curse under control," Yuko said…almost certain.
"We have to retrieve it from the Miko Club before it is stolen," Yuna continued the motivation.
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''Ran'' ended up in a miko white kosode top and red, long 'culotte-like' hakama. (She) even had their red ribbon (Lost in the red of (her) own hair, (she) was certain.) "So, where is it?" (she) asked, walking out of the changing room, holding up the hem to keep the long, full pants from dragging on the floor.
"It's behind this locked door," Yuko told her. It was covered with paper wards written in different calligraphy styles. The most illegible ones were painted onto the door itself. "All I have to do is say the arcane word." And she put her hands into prayer, chanted briefly and then spoke, out loud, "Open sesame!"
"We changed the password, Yuko," the high soprano voice from the other side of the door said. "We need to know if you are being held captive and being forced to give our secrets away!"
"Just look through the peep hole!"
"We can't. There's a ward over it."
Yuko turned apologetically to the rest of the roommates. "They take this very seriously. This is the first time we've had something this arcane."
"I understand," Yuna said.
"But that doesn't help us or Ran!" And Junko banged on the door. "Open up before I use the Hammer of Justice!"
"You have a hammer of justice?" Yuko was surprised.
"Shh! I don't want them to know can't really pull a mallet out of hammerspace."
The door opened. 'Ran' led the way, eager to reclaim (her) dragon's whisker! "Gimme it!"
"It's in the cauldron!" said the taller miko-dress girl–actually looking like one from an anime.
The 'cauldron' was a kitchen pot standing on a five-legged stand that was on a stove's burners.
"WHAT!?" screeched 'Ran'! "You're taking the magic or whatever outta it!"
The miko (she) had been holding was grateful the small amazon had forgotten to hold onto her. And threaten her. "No! We're just trying to see the source! Where it came from! That's all!" Don't punish me!
There was actually somebody more eager than Ran and pushed (her) aside! "Look!" Yuko cried. "An image!"
"There is?" 'Ran' looked into the steaming pot, squinting.
"It looks like a, a…rustic restaurant. High in some mountains."
"Yes!" The girl no longer on the floor had forgotten her intimidation and was eager to relate the club's accomplishment. "We've looked on the maps and are almost certain they are in Tibet!"
"Or in the Qinghai Province!" the only other legitimate miko added.
"...Qinghai?" Despite (her)self, 'Ran' peered into the bubbling brew. Did (she) sense something…or was it just (her) imagination?
"The restaurant is turning away customers," Yuko said, sadly shaking her head and long hair. "They're no longer serving what their customers want. And the customers have trekked to the most isolated part of China." Was it just a coincidence they were all bald?
Suddenly something flew up out of the pot, dripping broth! Even 'Ran' noticed it and was scared (she) would be losing it! (Her) hands reached out to grab and hold it!
But (she) reactively released it when it suddenly sprouted wings!
The dragon's whisker now had little dragon's wings(!?)
As 'Ran' watched, the mini-dragon flew back into the pot! "No~!" (she) cried, loud and long!
"Look! Look!" Yuko cried! And the two other miko present pushed Ran aside to gaze! Had they actually achieved something outrageously arcane!?
"Thank you! Thank you!" the man in traditional Chinese garb told them, bowing, holding the dragon whisker in his hand.
'Ran' pushed–unthinkingly–aside to shout into the pot, "Gimme back my whisker!"
"I have seen now I have made a grave mistake by gifting away my major source of income…"
"We heard! We heard! " the other two miko jumped, hugging each other.
"What'd you hear!?(!) demanded 'Ran'!
"Shh! Quiet! The restaurant owner's saying more!" Yuko told everybody!
"...follow my recipe in this pot and you will have my secret soup…"
"Secret soup?" the miko asked each other, confused.
"In gratitude, I will add to it the secret ingredient that will let the one I gifted it to–"
"I don't want soup–I want my dragon's whisker ba~ck!" 'Ran' demanded and cried, banging on stove with (her) fist! The pot jumped off and onto the floor! Still boiling hot.
"AAA!" (she) responded with all of the speed (her) reflexes gave her! Into somebody's arms! (She) just barely avoided becoming a boy! Frightening!
"Our next project!" the two other miko gleefully exclaimed. "Absolutely: Reestablish contact!" , "Hear the secret recipe!" , "And find the secret ingredient?" Even Yuko was becoming excited, dropping Ran onto the floor.
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'Ran' was still in the standard shinto uniform when (she) entered Room 13. Yuko was not (still in a midi skirt with pleats). (Junior–of practically the whole school–Noa carried the trash bag with Ran's laundry.) "Gah! What a Stupid, Stupid! thing to do!" (she) cursed (her)self, before (she), again, turned to Yuko, "Are you sure!? "
"Maybe, almost definitely sure. The Miko Club thinks we can get the Dragon's Whisker back through the pot. But the restaurant owner is able to keep it because of his promise: He has to give you the recipe that will control your hair…"
"...or he'll lose the whisker to me for good! " 'Ran' was overjoyed. Anyway (she) looked at it, it was a win-win!
"But first we've got to see and hear him again through the pot!" Yuko tried to remind the too overjoyed girl.
"Recipe?" Junko asked. There hadn't been enough room in the club room for the others. Especially as they had to stand guard.
"There's a soup recipe," Yuko explained. "Probably the one that gives the person who drinks the potion the power of ultra-masculine strength through long hair."
"Yes,..." Junko nodded. "...yes. That agrees with our theory about the double-sided curse Ran has." Male = masculine strength; female = feminine strength."
"Why men no have long hair now?" Noa was confused.
"The Romans, I think," Yuna said from her knowledge of history. "Their success showed that short hair was best in close battle. The legionnaire could and would easily grab hold of opponents' long hair and hold it until they became his victim. The Romans as a rule didn't have long hair."
"Girls here should cut off hair!?" That was a sore subject with the girl with hair shorter than most guys. It wasn't her idea; it was her Japanese step-dad's! The owner of O'hara (now Ohara) Wig and Weave Corp.
"Sounds like a Headmaster Coconuthead speech!" Mao said. "I don't want a geisha do!"
"Better than the bowl cut he wants to give to boys in schools like Fūrinkan," Yuko noted.
"MĀRG is armed with only tools in battle!" team-leader and coach, Junko reminded her. "And usually at a distance!"
"There will be little opportunity for your opponent to use your hair against you," Yuna reassured her.
"Why I care?! I have too-very short hair," Noa glummed, wishing to look in a mirror to remind herself not to look in a mirror.
"Get back to me~!" 'Ran' demanded!
"Right!" Yuko bowed. "As I understand it, the restaurant owner is going to give us the recipe for curing your hair problem."
"Yatta!"
"...Only it's temporary." Her shoulders slumped.
"Huh? Not 'yatta'(!)?"
"As I understand it, the restaurant guy has to dip the whisker into a soup he makes. The special ingredient links his with our soup, then…." Yuko shook her head, "...then we do not know yet." But she hurried to reassure the redheaded powerhouse. "I'm sure he'll tell us how to keep your male hair from getting too long!"
"He'd better." And as (she) let go of the taller girl's blouse, (she) said, "And you'd better!"
"In the meantime, we're still left with the problem we began with," Junko reminded them. "The school still wants you as a boy."
"Yeah, I understand. But I've had a full day. I'm gonna go to bed." And 'Ran' went to (her) assigned dorm room bed, fourth of six. (She) shed the miko uniform and instead of the still perfectly good jinbei, a traditional standard for Japanese sleepwear (she) had been loaned (she), she decided to sleep without any clothes. (She) preferred sleeping nude. (Unless it was, maybe, in (male) undershirts and boxers.) (She) didn't bother covering (her)self. (She) saw no reason to. (She) laid on top of a to (her) too soft futon raised unnecessarily off the floor…and gazed at the ceiling imagining (again?) a starring sky.
Hokkyokusei. That had always been important to (her). Why? Somewhere, in a voice unfamiliar to (her), (she) heard (again), "The North Star, it will always lead you home." Home. Would (she) even recognize home if (she) ever reached it?
Noa went to join her in her own bed, the one next to Ran's. She thought she at least had some understanding of the problems Ran was being forced to face. After all, she, too, was in an unfamiliar life. The Japanese could be so weird ! Even when they weren't, they could be weird to an American living in Greater Tokyo, Japan. She wasn't here because she was a big fan of everything or even anything that was Japanese. And so she was grateful to be able to offer a chat with another girl like a fish out of water.
But Ran was Japanese. Maybe she was in the middle-ground that would help her find the jump from her old life of hers to this, her new one. Maybe.
"Ran? You happy?"
"Now? Yes. I have a chance to get rid of my curse. And I getta slurp soup to do it!"
"Oh…." Not what Noa expected. It didn't show they did have a common ground.
"Noa?"
"Yes?"
"Why are you here. Why aren't you at home?"
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NOTES:
Just to be clear: According to canon, Ranma acquired his hair curse shortly after his Jusenkyo curse. He was a girl when he–without a pop or panda–ate a bowl of magic soup meant to restore hair: On bald MEN. The restaurateur let HER eat it because the secret ingredient in the soup ONLY worked on males. Since Ranma was a young man who WASN'T bald it had the very bad effect seen in Chapter 03.
Ranma beat the guy up and the restaurateur, and the man gave him the dragon's whisker to tie his hair up into a pigtail. That is what keeps the hair curse from being activated when he is male.
According to this story, that was the last dragon whisker–the source of the magic hair restorer–the restaurateur had. It is now restored to him through the dragon-magic that the Miko Club accidentally activated. And now the man owes a substitute to Ran(ma). It was something he COULD have given Ranma IF he had been given time and NOT been beaten up by Ranma.