What made this change different from all of the others, however, was the distinct lack of HoH (H20 is not water no matter how lazy you are!). As Ranma's brain finally understood the ramifications of this most recent change, the terror 'she' was now feeling got disrupted by the sudden return of 'her' manhood and the body that accompanied it, again without any fluidic assistance.
Almost before the return of his manhood and eliminated the terror of the first change, his form had again shifted to his alter ego.
The spontaneous changing of their houseguest was not missed by any of the Tendo sisters witnessing the event, their reactions to it almost made up for the strangeness in the situation as they were so predictable..
'Poor Ranma-kun.. I suppose I should prepare for more guests..'
'That idiot! I bet he was flirting with Shampoo again and allowed her to feed him some potion.'
'I wonder how much I can charge the idiots after Ranma for this latest developement..'
"Ranma, you idiot! Stop that right now, it looks weird!" the loud one screamed out after seeing the form change for the 30th time in less than a minute.
If it looked weird from the outside it most certainly felt weird from the inside. Unable to give the customary reply to one of Akane's tantrums, Ranma had to suffice for groaning.
"Oh, my! I'll call Tofu.." Kasumi said as she witnessed the lack of Ranma's usual spirited reply.
Tofu let out an audible sigh after his comprehensive testing of his patient. This had the immediate effect of increasing the worry already going through the minds of the three girls, which was not lessened any by the sweat coating Ranma's skin nor by the increasingly gray toning of that skin.
Tofu looked at the girls who were expecting a miracle out of him and winced, 'This is not going to be fun..' He coughed once then began to give his diagnosis, "Well, this confirmed a theory of mine, sadly. The trouble with dealing with magic is that it has so many paths it can take to get to the same results. The curses are a prime example of this.."
"What do you mean, doctor..?"
"Well the curses could have easily been accomplished by creating a whole new body and simply switching the template back and forth between the two. Unfortunately for Ranma we are not so lucky." Tofu said with an even louder sigh of sadness.
"Why would that have been lucky?" Nabiki asked curiously.
"Well if that had been the case the worst Ranma and the others would have faced would have been seperate life spans depending upon the body they were in at the time."
Tofu broke off long enough to sigh again before continuing, "What we have, though, is that the magic causes physical change to a single body. While this means that Ranma's female body is in fact his own body rather than belonging to a dead woman, it also means that a lot of change has to be done to the body in order for it to become so different."
".. And why is that bad..?" Nabiki asked to play devil's advocate.. although she was starting to see the answer already.
"For the normal Jusenkyo victim it isn't, really. There's a reason the springs are a training ground for experts in the art. Being an expert implies that one has already trained one's body to heal at a higher level. This higher healing is necessary to overcome the stress being done to the organs, bones, muscles, and other parts of the body which undergo the stress of the shifting."
"So because they are all martial artists they're safe from damage from the stress of the changing?" Akane said in summary of Tofu's dissection.
"Normally, yes, that is how it works, Akane. Unfortunately, Ranma here is shifting constantly now without giving his body time to recuperate from the previous changing. His body is being broken down with each successive changing of form. I'm sorry but unless Ranma can find some way to stabilize his curse relatively soon he'll die.. The only question right now is how long can Ranma resist the breaking down."
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by John Cameron
(Posted Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:34)
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.