Kuno perked up the wish-grainting MP3 player spoke up again. Who knew a bargain bin device could summon wish-granting goddesses? Why, he might even use it to listen to music some time in gratitude!
“Kuno-sama, there has been a development in regards to your wish.”
The kendo-ka was eager to hear word. “Yes? Speak, has the foul Saotome been destroyed?”
A smirk was almost audible through the device, not that Kuno noticed. “Yes, it is in regards to the second part of the wish. With the sorcerer’s hold on her released, she will be returning to her own world. There she is a samurai princess. Shall I send you there in pursuit as a young samurai lord so that you might woo her into marriage?”
Kuno didn’t pause to think. “Yes! Take me to my tree-bourne goddess!”
Safely away from the action, Mara couldn’t help but feel satisfied with her actions so far.
Skuld had caused a bug in the system and Urd had made it worse. Mara had taken advantage of it to get Belldandy to grant a wish to one of the people that hated the mortal she liked. With time the bug would get sorted out, but not before Belldandy inadvertently made the young man’s life miserable. This would in turn make the troublesome goddess herself troubled and serve to distract her.
No matter how much Belldandy tried, Mara would be there, using the backdoor into the system to manipulate this wish. The martial artist’s time as a princess would affect her more than Belldandy planned, Mara would ensure it.
Still there were limits to how much she could manipulate things without giving away her part in this affair and thus making the bug easier to find and fix.
Making the female Ranma a princess would not only make her marriage to Kuno easier, it would handily foil her attempts to learn alongside lowly shinobi. She would subtly alter the world so that samurai held more power, creating a troublesome difference in class. Then of course there would be the entire unexpected angle of being a princess and dealing with all that entailed.
Still, it wouldn’t spring on the new Hikari Uzumaki from the start. She’d set it up to happen a bit later, when it was too late for Belldandy to interfere.
Belldandy explored the new apartment in Konoha village alongside Ranma, now a flat-chested young girl. It was much like Japanese apartment in many ways, although a bit roomier than typical in Tokyo. There were some old fashioned and hand crafted accents, plus the technology was strange looking, but otherwise a nice apartment.
Almost too nice the goddess mused to herself. Considering the locale, it was a nicer place than average, being large and well furnished. Perhaps Ranma’s luck was improving?
The goddess took out a photo album, filled with the names and pictures of individuals Ranma should know for her stay in this world. It covered most of the basics and would appear to be constructed for study purposes, so Ranma would be able to keep the book openly. Belldandy opened it to the page containing the picture of the blonde boy with the whisker marks. “This is Naruto Uzumaki, an orphan in this village. Your reason for visiting here will be partially so you could check up on your distant cousin, related via his mother.”
Ranma nodded, reasonably pleased with the situation. Twelve years old meant she was blessedly flat-chested as a girl. Her clothes consisted of a blue vaguely Chinese styled top and short black pants, suitably tomboy clothes for her tastes. “Okay.”
Belldandy considered the situation and thought Ranma might well be happier with something to do. “He’s a trouble-maker right now, mostly to get attention. Perhaps you might be interested in getting him interested in martial arts instead?”
The martial artist’s mind had already come up with a plan. Introduce the brat to martial arts and use that as an excuse to check out the local martial arts. Whether she actually helped the brat would be up to him, but it would do for breaking the ice. “Mhmm, that should work.”
Belldandy was reluctant to go, but she was running out of topics to discuss. Suddenly she thought of something. “Oh, would you like me to cure your fear of cats? That should be something I can do since the Nekoken is a defining attribute of Ranma Saotome, one trait you may be happy to have cured.”
Ranma stared at her for a moment. “You can cure that?”
The goddess smiled warmly, happy to have thought of something that could help. “Yes.”
Ranma considered it. Lose a crippling weakness his father saddled him with along with a fairly useless technique he couldn’t control? “Ah, then please cure it.”
Belldandy pressed her forehead against the petite red-head’s forhead, concentrating peacefully for a moment. Then she withdrew. “There, it shouldn’t bother you now.”
Ranma didn’t feel any different. “Really?”
Quite happy to have done something nice for Ranma, Belldandy made her way over to a window. Sliding it open, she poked her head out, looking for someone. “Oh hello there. Could you come here for a moment?”
“Sure thing sister.”
Ranma came up to see a cat? She was pretty sure that’s what the creature was, but it was almost like she was seeing one for the first time.
Belldandy smiled pleasantly at the tabby cat. “Oh, nice to meet you. This is Hikari Uzumaki, she’ll be living here for a while. Please look after her.”
The cat licked her paw and smoothed out her ears before replying. “Sure thing aneki.”
Ranma blinked. “Huh, I didn’t know cats could talk too.”
Belldandy looked at Ranma in surprise since most mortals couldn’t talk to animals. Had she made a mistake? “You can understand her?”
The petite red-head shrugged. “Yeah, I can understand most animals. I guess it was the trauma that made cats sound like horrible monsters before.”
The cat tilted her head to the side. “Trauma?”
Ranma ignored her question. “I seem to understand her better than usual though. Most animals don’t have much to say, you know?”
Belldandy shook her head at the kitty as the trauma was an unpleasant subject. “The animals of this land may be more talkative.”
Ranma took it in stride, nodding at the cat. “Hi, I’m...” Unfortunately she was forced into an awkward pause as she tried to say Ranma Saotome. “...Hikari Uzumaki, nice to meet you.”
The cat raised up one paw. “A pleasure little one, I’m Jinga.”
A little while later, the cat was showing Ranma around town on her quest to find new cousin. It was strange to be friends with a cat all of the sudden, but she certainly wasn’t bothered by them anymore. More curious was her ability to understand the local creatures.
She could understand animals to an extent due to her experience in the wilderness, but this was her first experience outright conversing with a normal animal. At least she assumed the cat was normal, this new world seemed to be magical in some strange ways. She was more used to just having a general idea of what the animal wanted.
The biggest difference for the village was really the lack of cars, something she’d only seen in remote mountain villages or tiny island villages in her world. It wasn’t as ninja or martial arts crazy as she’d thought it would be either, but it did have a nice feel to it. Nabiki would hate it for sure, but she had a feeling Kasumi and Shanpu would like the place just fine.
Eventually she found the blonde kid being shouted at by one of the village’s ninja. A lecture for pulling pranks? Must suck as a ninja if he got caught, otherwise what was the point of pulling pranks? “The infamous Naruto Uzumaki, I presume?”
The quarreling pair turned to look at her in open-mouthed shock, unused to people actually looking for Naruto in a peaceful way. Hesitantly Naruto pointed at himself, but it was Iruka that spoke up, curious who might be looking for the boy. “Yes, this is Naruto Uzumaki.”
Ranma grinned and did a little bow, feeling that politeness was the way to go to make this amusing. She was apparently a young lady in this world, so she didn’t want to do anything too suspicious yet. “Hikari Uzumaki, a pleasure to meet you cousin.”
Iruka could see the family resemblance immediately. Kushina Uzumaki had stood out in the village like a sore thumb even before she was the fourth hokage’s wife. This girl with the red hair and blue eyes looked like a younger version of the infamous Red Hot Habanero. Naruto being a tailed beast host was a closely kept secret, so there was some worry that an outsider might have been trying to do something with the boy.
Naruto on the other hand was processing the fact that they shared a family name and were cousins, mouth still agape. “...Uzumaki?”
Ranma smirked at the boy. “Are you that surprised to have relatives?”
Naruto continued to gape, this new girl being as good looking as Sakura if not more so. Her outfit was like Sakura’s but nicer, and she had her red-hair in a ponytail that hung down the back of her neck. Most importantly, there was no disdain or hatred in her gaze.
With the pair continuing to be locked up, Ranma had to make a decision about how she was going to act. Troublemaker or ultra-tomboy seemed like they would be a bad influence on her cousin, and Belldandy had asked her to try and help him. Ranma knew how to be polite from his training in Kyoto, but generally preferred to be more informal than most instead. Perhaps a refined tomboy samurai-girl act? Oh yes, she could have fun doing that too.
Turning her attention to the man, Ranma addressed him instead. “So what has my wayward cousin done to incur your ire?”
Straightening up, Iruka made himself look more like a respectable adult. “Ah, Naruto-kun was so busy playing pranks instead of studying he failed another practical exam at the academy today.”
That was enough to shake the blonde out of his daze, back to his normal mood as he defensively lowered his goggles. “I was just distracted was all!”
Ranma considered him with a cool gaze, having already made a firm guess of his personality. What would be the simplest way to get him to take it seriously? The red-head smiled pleasantly, remembering how people tended to underestimate her ability to manipulate people. “Oh, well I’m here to join the academy as well. Perhaps you could tutor me on the basic shinobi techniques?”
Grinning at the idea of someone asking for his help, Naruto put his hands behind his head and let his mouth run off ahead of him. “Well yeah, but maybe it’ll be too tough for you, since you’re just a girl.”
Seeing the red-haired girl’s eyes narrow, Iruka moved to protect Naruto from her impending wrath. “Ah! Apologize Naruto-kun! Uzumaki women are dangerous when you make them angry!”
Blue eyes turned towards Iruka with a violent twitch, causing him to back away defensively as he started to reflexively apologize. “That is, I’m sure you’re a nice girl normally,” Iruka turned to Naruto mid-sentence, “but if she gets angry she’ll turn into a violent maniac!”
Her annoyance rising from the guy acting like she was a violent tomboy, Ranma became really annoyed when he paraphrased Kasumi’s description of Akane. One small fist smacked into her other palm as she grinned at the man. “Alright then, first we’ll have a taijutsu review.”
Despite being an experienced adult shinobi, Iruka took another step back reflexively as her menace snapped into full effect. As a young brat he’d actually made the mistake once of teasing Kushina about her red-hair at the insistence of the other kids. She had been a young woman at the time, and he didn’t know he was teasing the nine-tail’s host, but she’d put him and his group of conspirators all in their place. As a result, he was just a teensy bit intimidated by this mini-Kushina, so he got a little more defensive than he should have. “I’ll have you know I’m a chunin instructor. I’m not scared of you!”
Naruto couldn’t help but flinch as within seconds Iruka-sensei was dumped on the ground in a human knot, moaning pitifully.
The petite red-head turned blue eyes his way. “So, taijutsu review or ninjutsu practice Naruto-kun?”
Naruto snapped to attention with a salute. “Ninjutsu ma’am! Please allow me the honor!”
Ranma grabbed one of Iruka’s hands and lightly kicked him in the back, causing the man to flop out of his human-knot position to lay on his back, eyes rolled back and mouth foaming. “Relax Naruto-kun, I’m not some sort of violent monster.”
Naruto couldn’t help but nervously back away as her sudden sweet and innocent act just made her seem all the scarier.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Valor Phoenix
(Posted Sun, 25 Aug 2013 03:50)
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.