Ranma knew of some of the powers it bestowed, though apparently the Old Man himself couldn't be bothered to deal with anything of a day-to-day basis.
One power was that of a form of Sight, though it required he go down to the edge of a large body of water and dive in. What he saw was often strange but sometimes useful. Still, he could only do it for as long as he could hold his breath underwater. It also frequently involved the past. It sometimes made no sense at all to him, but sometimes it DID. He didn't do it too often because he nearly drowned doing it more than once while engaged in mental combat with the Old Man for those answers.
Maybe it was the Old Man trying to return to the sea, maybe it was stubborness, maybe it was just plain ornery.
He knew Proteus though. The Old Man Of The Sea who could change forms and knew the gossip of the gods. Proteus had apparently chosen to reside in him because of some "kindred spark" but that didn't mean the Old Man was particularly trustworthy or even liked Ranma that much.
Proteus the shapeshifter, who could adapt to any situation and had to be fought for every advantage. Ranma had learned more about mental combat, wrestling, and had developed entirely new martial arts techniques as a result of those skirmishes.
The Proteus materia could, potentially, allow him full shapechanging. He couldn't do that yet, maybe he never would manage it.
It could do other things, but right now he was aware of one thing that he didn't have to go soak his head for.
His fiancee (yes, he was quite aware of that arrangement involving Konoka Konoe even if he acted ignorant of it because he had no idea what to do about it) was here, his kunoichi was here, his fiancee's overly protective bodyguard was here.
Ranma knew from experience what would happen if you wandered into a room with a girl changing clothes. He'd done that once or twice, and with Konoka and Setsuna being one of those two times. The result had been Setsuna chasing him around half the village until he used his materia to imitate a cheetah's sprint ability.
The other time, well, at least it wasn't likely he'd run into THEM again.
"Boss?" Kaede asked, opening a panel in the wall and sliding a curtain out.
That brought a certain degree of relief to Ranma. If the room could be divided, with this curtain running along this track in the ceiling, it could cut his problems in half. Kaede didn't freak if they'd seen each other briefly in the nude during their camping training trips, so it was mainly Setsuna and Konoka he was worried about.
It was still likely to be a problem, but not a constant one. More sporadic.
"The hem is weighted," noted Kaede.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, Ranma hoped.
(Posted Sun, 25 Mar 2007 19:08)
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