Some hours later, Ranma was on an international flight from Tokyo, Japan to New York, New York. She, at the time, had been reluctantly convinced to leave a note for her father, Genma, to let the man know where she was going and why. Of course, the only reason she’d agreed to it though, was because it would take Genma a couple of days, minimum, to even try and follow them once they were in the air.
Ranma had graciously offered to help her unexpected benefactor, Egon Spengler collect and pack his things for the ensuing flight. It wasn’t all generosity, of course, most of her motivation laid in getting out of there before her father could wake up and try to drag her off again.. She did, however, request enough time to take a quick shower and change back into a guy again before leaving to catch their flight.
Egon, to his credit, actually took the news that Ranma had a second curse affecting him rather well. The man hardly even batted an eye at the revelation when Ranma finally exited the hotel shower just a few minutes later. But while he might not have panicked over it, that didn’t stop Egon from asking Ranma an almost baffling string of questions about after Ranma told him it was another curse.
Most of their trip to the airport was spent with Ranma explaining how he’d managed to pick up two extremely inconvenient curses within three weeks of each other. Jusenkyo obviously intrigued the older male quite a bit. But from the sounds of things, unless Ranma could fund it for them, a trip to China any time soon was strictly out of the question.
Explaining Jusenkyo to the older male alone took up most of their ride to the airport, thanks in part to all the questions Ranma had to stop and answer. Ranma was also disappointed to find out first hand why he would have to fund the trip to China if it happened at all. Airfare from Japan to China alone wasn’t exactly cheap, not by Ranma’s personal standards at least.
That wasn’t even counting things like multiple passengers, plus the specialized scientific equipment Egon claimed they would need as well. There was literally no possible way that they’d be making that particular trip anytime in the near future, not on Ranma’s limited budget. It certainly wasn’t something to hold his breath over, not by a long shot.
Although if that wasn’t bad enough, even though Ranma had the necessary cash, he still couldn’t buy the needed ticket to fly along with Egon. Apparently, the company that owned the airplane itself had some kind of stupid policy against accepting last minute bookings. Their official excuse was that it was too tedious and threatened to lower their punctuality rating too much.
In the end, Ranma was forced to board the plane as a ghost to get past security without having to be separated from his eagerly curious host, Egon. He did this by entrusting the man with the same amulet that was used to curse Ranma in the first place. After that Ranma simply had to be careful not to touch anyone until they were safely on the plane itself. Well, that, and make sure that Egon didn’t try to do anything with the amulet except hold onto it until it was safe for Ranma to speak again.
It was annoying, but just to be safe, they’d both agreed that Ranma would have to spend the entire flight as a ghost to avoid causing any trouble. Still, that didn’t stop Ranma from quietly picking up his story where he’d been forced to leave off at the airport lobby. A few people stared at Egon and the empty seat beside him, but no one including the stewardess said anything about their quiet conversation, even if they noticed it.
“Anyway, right after I made up for that little slip by kicking her off the challenge log and winning the match, the crazy chick went and pulled a fast one on me. That was when she went and put the amulet that your holding for me around my neck, and kissed me on the cheek. At first I thought that she was just trying to prove that there was no hard feelings or something. Boy was I ever wrong,” Ranma continued with his story, having already told Egon why they’d gone to see the so-called ‘Chinese Amazons’ in the first place.
“Right after she finished that stupid kiss- they call it ‘the Kiss of Death’ -she starts muttering some mumbo jumbo with this nasty smile on her face. That’s about the same time that the Jusenkyo Guide freaked out, grabbed my arm, and started dragging me and pop away from there just as fast as he could run.”
Ranma paused then to take a quick breath before resuming his tale again. “I think we were a good dozen miles away or so before the guy even tried to explain what just happened to us, me, back there,” he corrected himself mid-sentence. “As it turns out, that thing used to belong to some ancient Chinese wizard or something like that. According to the guide, those crazy Amazon chicks had been using it off and on for centuries to make any outsider that embarrassed them too much just disappear.”
“Apparently, I got lucky since the guide drug us out of there before the crazy chick could take the stupid thing back again. You see, the way it works is that it can only be activated if someone reads off that funky incantation written on the back of it. They have to say it in old Chinese though, and someone has to be wearing it at the time, or else nothing ‘ll happen,” Ranma explained to Egon carefully.
“Once it’s activated though, the person wearing it can’t take it off again without physically turning into some kind of ghost or spirit. Putting it back on makes you flesh and blood again, but only for as long as you’re wearing it. Worse than that though, if the stupid thing is activated again while someone else is wearing it, you’re stuck as a ghost, and it’ll never work for you. And That is pretty much everything I know about that thing in a nutshell,” Ranma finished with an unseen, and equally helpless shrug.
“I don’t suppose you know what this amulet is actually called, do you, Ranma? Or maybe the name of the wizard who actually created it in the first place,” Egon asked, immediately probing for information once the story was done.
Luckily, there was at least one more tidbit of information about the amulet that Ranma did know, even if he’d forgotten to put it into his story. “I think they called it ‘The Eye of Death’, or something like that at least. The guide’s Japanese was a little hard to make out at times,” he explained apologetically.
“And its proper name is specifically Chinese, I assume? Most likely in one of the older dialects, no doubt,” Egon thought aloud to himself. “And do you have any idea who actually created it in the first place, Ranma,” he reminded Ranma, holding his chin thoughtfully while the man thought over what he knew so far.
“Not a clue,” Ranma admitted with another shrug, forgetting yet again that no one could see the gesture right now. “The guide admitted more than once that he didn’t really know the full story himself. We couldn’t exactly ask those Amazons for details after that either,” he admitted a little sourly.
“No, I suppose you couldn’t,” Egon agreed, still posing thoughtfully with his chin held in one hand. “But still, as limited as the information is, it is a place to start if nothing else. Also, if we can free you from the amulet without forcing you into an early afterlife, it could prove invaluable to my own research as well. I’ll simply have try and see what I can find out on the subject as soon as we can get back to New York.”
In the mean time however:
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(Posted Sun, 22 Aug 2010 02:51)
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