The Senshi of Love didn’t even stop her prodding to answer. “Yeah, that’s me.”
“Umm… could you stop doing that?”
“Huh? Stop doing wh—Oh!” The girl immediately backed off as far away as she could, blushing beet red.
“I take it they’re the real deal?” Haruka’s smirking question only made Minako blush even harder. She’d only done it out of innocent curiosity, but she’d also forgotten that one should never do anything suggestive in front of Haruka.
This amusing display briefly held the others’ attention, but soon enough they retuned to Ranma. She sighed and said, “Lemme guess. Now, you guys wanna know how it happened, right?” The others greeted Ranma with a round of nods. The redheaded girl sighed again, and began telling her story for the second time that day. “Alright, right after me an’ Setsuna got married, Pops took me on a training trip to China…”
Ami, like most of the Senshi, was taken aback by Ranma’s sudden transformation. While their experience with the Starlights had familiarized them with the concept of gender-bending magic, this was the first time she’d obsevered that variety of magic in a context unrelated to Sailor transformations. She tapped a few keys on the Mercury Computer, and had it begin recording Ranma’s tale in addition to the detailed scan it was doing of Setsuna’s husband (naturally, being a piece of technology from a matriarchal society, the Mercury Computer was extremely efficient at multitasking). That done, she turned her attention back to Ranma’s story.
“…got this map, see, and even though he can’t read Chinese very well, he understood enough ta figure out that there was this real famous training ground in the Bayankala mountain range…”
Makoto listened to Ranma with a mixture of envy and pity. Envy, because she’d never received the opportunities to improve her own martial arts skills that Ranma had, and pity, because of the curse that he had acquired in pursuit of those skills. Ranma’s cursed form had to be difficult to fight in; the redheaded girl was only as tall as Usagi’s, but her bust was as big as her own. That had to throw a person’s balance out the window, especially since Ranma probably couldn’t wear a bra—one that was small enough to give her ample support on her small frame would no doubt snap when she transformed back into a man. Of course, that was a moot point, as it was obvious that Ranma’s male self-image would probably never permit him to wear any kind of female undergarments if he could help it.
“…nobody in the guide’s home, see, so we just hopped on the poles and started training…”
Haruka appeared to be listening intently, and, in fact, she was picking up all most of the pertinent details. But that was not what her attention was focused on…
It was quite simple. Though most of the water had gone onto Ranma’s lap, a significant amount ended up on the front of her tang. This shirt was obviously made of a rather thin material, most likely silk. And, for obvious reasons, Ranma-kun had not been wearing a bra.
Haruka was happy.
Michiru, on the other hand, was not.
Her lover had covered her mouth with her hand as she leaned forward. If you looked at her from most angles, she appeared to be in deep thought. From where Michiru was sitting, however, it was clear that her androgynous girlfriend was trying to disguise a really stupid grin. She leaned over to her significant other and whispered, “Haruka…”
“Eh?”
“Versace.”
That sobered up the blonde racer in a flash. Haruka straightened up and quietly replied, “I’ll be good.”
“You’d better.”
“…got off the poles and reached inta my pocket, but Setsuna’s ring was gone…”
Rei took note of Ranma’s story with a great deal of curiosity. She filed many of the key details in the back of her mind for later use during a fire reading—her instincts were telling her that they would need as much knowledge of Jusenkyo as possible in the near future.
“…so I jumped in…”
Hotaru wasn’t sure what to think of her newly acquired father figure—who currently had a figure that made both of her mother figures look homely by comparison (and that said a lot about how gorgeous Ranma-chan was). Still, she wasn’t so naïve as to think that Ranma-papa would find this to be of any comfort—in fact, she—he would likely think that that made the curse even worse. She didn’t have a clue how one was supposed to react to something like this… so she decided to simply continue listening for now.
“…was a Spring of Drowned Boy, I immediately assumed that would cure me, so like an idiot I had ta go an’ jump in. But it turns out that the Nannichuan is a hot spring, so it didn’t work at all. In fact, it just made things worse…”
Mamoru couldn’t help but sympathize with Ranma—if he had been in the same situation, he’d probably have done the same thing.
“…and soon after that, the two of us headed back ta Japan.”
Silence filled the room for a while, but it was eventually broken by Usagi. “So, why couldn’t they just cure your Nyannichuan curse at Joketsuzoku?” The tone of her voice had changed from her usual bubbliness to the more even-handed tone of Neo-Queen Serenity.
Ranma apparently didn’t notice; or if she did, she dismissed it as she looked at the ponytailed girl forlornly. “’Cause Jusenkyo curses mix. If ya just get cursed by Nyannichuan, then ya turn inta a girl with cold water, and hot water turns ya back ta normal. But if ya got a Nannichuan curse on top of that, then hot water doesn’t turn ya back ta ‘normal,’ it turns ya inta a boy, and that’s different. Now, if I’m ever gonna be cured, I gotta get rid of both at the exact same time, an’ it’s supposed to be next ta impossible ta do that if ya got both a hot water an’ a cold water curse.”
“So there isn’t anything you can do?”
“Not that they know of. Could be worse, I guess. According ta what the Amazon healers said, I won’t have ta worry ’bout pickin’ up another Jusenkyo curse. There’s also supposed ta be a bunch of artifacts somewhere that can lock someone in their cursed form, but since both of my forms are technically cursed, I don’t hafta worry about that. I guess I’ll just have to try an’ live with it in the meantime.”
By now, Usagi’s empathy had kicked into high gear. If what Ranma said was true, then it was likely that his only hope was the Ginzuishou. She’d have to talk to Luna about this—speaking of which, where was that cat?
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Kwakerjak
(Posted Sun, 11 Dec 2005 20:35)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.