On the other hand, he frequently got an idea in his head and it would take a miracle to alter that track.
So it was with the scroll. He'd apparently been transported via spell to some place near Okayama all the way from Tokyo. The scroll was very handy but not exactly subtle. When he'd begun invoking it, electrical lines had begun discharging nearby. The wind had gone from lightly playful to a howling windstorm that changed direction without warning. Then there had been the light show. First blue patterns of odd complexity, symbols that he hadn't understood, rising up and shifting in a globular shape surrounding him and Ranma and the altar.
There had been a fading out of the old temple as lightbulbs had exploded and lightning had seemed to crawl around on nearby surfaces. The images had been of them leaving the planet, passing moons and stars and galaxies at ever increasing speeds. Glows and flashes had surrounded them, and Genma had felt as if something had passed through him.
Then they were surrounded by darkness lit by thousands of glowing pearls, each with shifting pictures that he hadn't been able to make out. The sensation of movement, as they'd sped from their previous location (which had become a pearl as soon as they left it) and sped to another pearl (which had become huge before leaving it.) There had been another sensation of passing through something he couldn't see, but which had left him tingling. Then he (and Ranma from his reaction) had felt IT.
There were somethings out there in the void. Somethings were hungry. Somethings which were hateful. At least one Something old and powerful that hated beyond human limitations and which barely noticed the two nearly insignificant fly turds passing through its field of vision.
Then they were past it, and the pearl they'd ended up on had turned out to be Southern Japan.
While impressive in its way, Genma had no intention of ever using that scroll again unless his life were in direct danger. That had been just too scary a ride for too little effect, so he carefully rolled the scroll back up, fitted it in the tube again, and sealed it up as it had been when he'd found it.
Walking along the dirt road along farms, looking out at the pastoral countryside, it could have been fifty years ago for all the change he was seeing. Oh, to be sure, the tractor over there was fairly modern - but that was a minor detail. There was a timelessness to this part of Japan with only a few details that might otherwise clue the wanderer in as to when they were.
In fact, it was that very timelessness that had Genma worrying briefly about the possibility that they HAD gone back in time. If they'd ended up in the Warring States Era or the Disarmament, that could have put serious crimps in his plans to marry Ranma off to one of Tendo's daughters.
An old farmer working on a tractor had a stalk of hay sticking out of one corner of his mouth, and barely seemed to notice the two walking along the road nearby. Genma cleared his throat twice, then shrugged. "Good morning. I think I've gotten turned about. Is this near Okayama?"
"Okayama? No no no," said the farmer, not turning from his work. "Okayama's twenty odd miles away."
"Thank you," said Genma, who considered twenty miles to be less than a significant distance all things considered.
Something he didn't realize off the start was:
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(Posted Sun, 17 Apr 2005 09:50)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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