Some of them claimed that it was just luck. Some of them said that it was because the ARF were betrayed by their own people shortly after the First Ranma disappeared.
The truth was very simple: They just weren't on Earth before they were ready to cast the spell.
When Washuu had barely escaped the attack of the Army to the Masaki Shrine with only her daughter Ryoko and Mihoshi, they had tried to escape the planet using a ship. Unfortunately, as Sasami and Ryo-okhi were 'assimilated', they had used their space flight capabilities to spread the influence of the Army to other worlds. When they had managed to get another ship and leave for the Jurian homeworld, they found it assimilated by the ARF. They knew that no planet would be safe for them, so that leaved one way out: Leave this doomed dimension until they could find a way to get this mess solved.
Unfortunately, the dimensional gate that they had built back on Earth failed, and dropped them on a lifeless dimension. Curiously, this time it wasn't Mihoshi's fault. And more curiously, it was Mihoshi who gave them the key for going back to home.
To fully understand this, one must learn why magic and technology are opposed. The very basis of technology was the use of the properties of the universe, and the basis of magic was altering those properties.
When the ARF had taken over the world, they had used gruesome quantities of magic on the world, turning most of the aviable technology faulty. When Washuu had tried to use technology to reach another dimension, it backfired.
When Washuu had tried to understand what had gone wrong (She positively knew that it wasn't Mihoshi's fault, as Ryoko had watched her 24/7) she learned the hard way that it was due to the magic: something she had never encountered before, and that filled this damned dimension.
And she was unable to grasp how magic worked.
It was too chaotic! How could anyone hope to control that without turning their brain to jelly with the strain? There were too much stray variables to control, and too much uncertainity. Depressed, she abandoned the project and resigned to her fate. She was still able to replicate edible food and water with her improvised technology, but their results were often weird. They would survive, but never escape.
On the other hand, Mihoshi felt finally free in this desolated world. There were no more complicated machines that would break if she tried to use them, and she was able to feel something in the air that made her strangely feel at home. Still, she was sad to see how her friends despaired.
Watching the discarded food replicator that Washuu had tried to build trying to compensate the changes that magic caused. Now she knew! She would prepare a nice meal that would cheer them! She reached out and started to operate the machine.
"Congratulations, Washuu! You finally did it!" Ryoko said to the despairing scientist, handing her a bowl of steamy ramen.
"What are you talking about?" she angrily replied. And then she noticed the bowl. "And where the heck did you find this?"
"Mihoshi had prepared it using your machine! This is your greatest work ever, if MIHOSHI was able to use it perfectly!"
"MIHOSHI HAD DONE WHAT?!!!!!!!!!!!"
After a brief explanation and some experiments, they were able to determine that Mihoshi, and not her flawed machine, was the source of the miracle. It seemed that Mihoshi was a natural catalyst of magical energy, which explained why she couldn't handle technology. They tried to teach Mihoshi the rudiments of magic (the little they had been able to learn), and they were more surprised to find that she was able to absorb that knowledge like water, quickly surpassing her improvised teachers and researching on her own.
Washuu was almost jealous of her newfound knack, but she felt that magic was... dirty. It lacked the beauty of the differential equations that shaped her knowledge. And she was deprived of that beauty until they were able to return to their own universe again. She only could teach Mihoshi about the things that technology could do, and she would learn to replicate it with magic.
A year after they had reached the pocket universe, Mihoshi was finally able to cast the spell that would open the way home. However, time flowed differently there and millenia had passed. And they found that the ARF still dominated the world. They went to the deserted ruins of the Masaki shrine and rebuilt it.
After a bit of research, Mihoshi was able to find what was holding the brainwashing spells, and managed to design a creative way of dispelling it without harming any living soul. After a month of preparations, she casted what now is known as the Blessing of Born Form. Still, the unexpected death of all the nonborn children was a hard blow to Mihoshi's confidence. She vowed to not using magic ever again until she could know exactly what the consequences were.
Soon, magicians, who were curious at what the source of the great spell that had freed them all was, started to arrive to the shrine. She had tried to dismiss them, telling them about her mistake, but they gladly offered their help. That way, the Sorceress of Masaki were born.
However, Washuu wasn't willing to be on an Earth completely filled with magic, and left towards one of her hidden laboratories on the moon, where the magical field on Earth didn't reach. Ryoko acted as a messenger between Mihoshi and Washuu, and vowed to find a way to make technology work on Earth again.
The only hope she had of that was finding Tenchi's blade. Back on that barren dimension, Washuu had learned that part of the power that fueled the blade was magical, and it was harnessed using technology. If she could find that blade again, between Mihoshi and Washuu they could learn how that was acheived.
Sadly, the blade had passed from mother to daughter in all these millenia, and she had lost Tenchi's bloodline at one of the Mari brothels...
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(Posted Tue, 08 Oct 2002 11:17)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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