He would admit that things were starting to be very weird for him. He was used to that. After all, when you had lived the short life he had lead up to that point, met and trained under those that he had done; the weird and unusual became too commonplace for you to be too disrupting to your usual way of life.
Of course, even he would admit that this had been a new one.
He had come to the Cherry Hill Shrine to assist in the training of the Mr. Hino’s granddaughter. Even at the age of seventeen, many saw him as perhaps the strongest figure in their community, possessing skills that surpassed those considered to be elders.
Of course, he was forced to pay dearly for those skills.
He was once known as Ranma Saotome. At the tender age of eight, his father had tried to teach him the Nekoken.
But after it had continually failed, and even Ranma’s endurance was beginning to fail, Genma refused to stop until Ranma got over his fear of cats.
And in usual Saotome style, if you are afraid of it, then you must face it totally unprepared and in the worst situation possible.
But one night when Genma decided to get drunk, bemoaning the fact that Ranma was still afraid of cats, the pigtailed boy made a break for it. After all, he certainly didn’t want to go back into the pit, and his father had plainly said he was always going to go in until he didn’t ‘cry like a little injured girl’ anymore.
Sure, it was cowardly, but it could also be called the Saotome Secret Technique as well.
It had taken a few days for Genma to catch up to him, the old man showing skills Ranma had never seen in either their spars or his training, while trying to corner the boy or avoid those trying to stop the irate father. This further infuriated the boy, as it showed that his father had been purposely stunting their training.
So the game of cat and mouse continued. Genma would get close, and Ranma would set it up for his Old Man to get arrested for something, which in turn would allow Ranma more time to get away.
It lasted across Japan, across the sea, into China...
It lasted until Jusenkyo.
Ranma had no idea what Jusenkyo was, he just knew it was a training ground, and perhaps had someone who could help him either finally defeat his worthless father or at least set up a scene to throw the old louse off the scent.
He didn’t blame Genma for being cursed to change into a girl with cold water. He could have been smarter and had learned some Mandarin, even listened to the Guide.
But cursed he was, just as Genma was cursed to become a girl as well, having fallen in when he grabbed Ranma.
The Amazons were nice to the child, taking him in, since his father had freaked out at being cursed to be a “weak-minded girl”.
Cologne had been pretty nice, even taught him Mandarin, Cantonese, and a few other languages. His girl form was adopted into the tribe, much to the annoyance of a few Elders and even some young girls who just knew he would grow into a strong male for them to challenge and marry.
He received training in both lore and martial arts, though several moves were not taught since he was still considered an “outsider” by several on the ruling council.
And Genma? They took great delight in taking on the male. When the Elders had learned of his attitude and ideas of training, they enjoyed it so much, they decided to make certain of a few things.
First, the declared that he was immune to marriage laws. They didn’t want him ever to enter the village. The second was that Ranma was always able to watch these fights, looking on as the old man continued to show moves that reinforced how much he was holding back and not training Ranma.
It wasn’t that the moves were beyond Ranma’s level, as they were proof he was holding back to always have an Ace, a way to defeat his son.
And for someone you were training to be the heir to the family school; that was a big no-no.
Eventually, Ranma had learned all he could from them, and Cologne managed to sneak him out of the village while others were dealing with his father.
The trail was cold, he was safe.
Making it back to Japan at the age of twelve, he ended up at the Windy Blossoms Shrine in Nerima Ward. Mr. Yamamoto had been at the shrine his whole life, and was kind enough to take in the kid as an apprentice.
Within a year, little Ranma—no last name as he didn’t want any connection to his father, who he hoped was still being tortured by Amazons—was almost as great a master of those skills as his teacher, spending his days dealing with demons, devils, possessions, and the little trans-dimensional threat that thought Tokyo was a easy target.
That is not to say he only learned how to fight. Aside from the occasional visiting Grandmaster of some school who Mr. Yamamoto was able to have visit to teach Ranma, the old shrine priest didn’t let Ranma drop his scholarly studies. The old priest was almost as harsh getting Ranma to study those as he was sacred texts, scrolls, and such.
So it was little wonder that by the boy’s seventeenth birthday—took some doing to find that without alerting anyone that ‘Ranma Saotome’ was in Nerima—that Mr. Yamamoto had declared him ready to be on his own.
But Ranma didn’t leave. The area was his home, the people his friends.
He had found a peace at the shrine he knew he would not find anywhere else.
Of course, that wasn’t to say the peace wasn’t occasionally busted.
He had been requested by the eldest Tendo daughter to help the youngest get over her anger issues. That was hard and often led to him having to ‘bop’ the girl on the head, as Elder Cologne had done many a time for him. But progress was being made.
Then you had the resident pervert, who often had his outings stopped by Ranma. The old letch would try and get even, and Ranma would make his pain that more painful. The old letch had even tried to rob Ranma of his strength using a moxibustion technique.
It might have worked too, had Ranma not picked the guy’s pockets and found the scroll with the reversing burn.
Then there was the usual assortment of idiots; from kendo practitioners who declared you a demon for not teaching them or taking ‘their’ girl, to the usual morons who thought beating you would make them more powerful.
Not that Ranma hated it. It was just that they were almost always weak, had only one skill that they depended on way too much, or results to spikes and voodoo dolls.
He really hoped not to see that boy again. The pale face just made him look creepy, and his attempts at magic were just sad, almost like kicking a puppy was the emotion one got when they defeated him.
Then you had the perverts who would show up, hitting on the shrine maiden—Ranma in his girl form, not minding it since the Amazons helped him through both Genma’s training about girls and the gender identity issues—with the hopes of getting somewhere with the lovely redhead.
Not that they had a chance in Hell. Ranma may change into a girl in body, but the mind was one hundred percent straight male. And it was against the code to take them for all the treats they could afford.
A damn shame, too, since that Kuno boy thought he could by the priestess’s love.
Then there were the standard weird things he dealt with as Mr. Yamamoto sent him to assist—cough*cheap teacher*cough*less work for him*cough—to other shrines.
This was why he had been at the Cherry Hill Shrine when Happosai appeared. The pervert had moved to another area in the hopes of ‘having his fun’ without Ranma to spoil it. Seeing the priest there, he used his new assault to ‘teach him not to interfere in an old man’s harmless fun.’
The spell, like many of Happosai’s had been botched.
It was supposed to send Ranma somewhere that would ‘teach him a lesson’.
Instead, it doubled Ranma equally, and used Happosai’s own life force to open a portal.
The two Ranma’s looked at each other, flipped a coin, and one went through—portals like that stayed open and sometimes expanded unless a life force of strong enough levels went through.
Both were the same, both exact copies of the original.
And both would remain connected, no matter what happened.
And thus we begin with that Ranma exiting the portal, and ending up in...
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(Posted Thu, 14 Sep 2006 11:30)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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