All the drive and talent that would have made Ranma a top martial artist had been poured into overcoming his new physical limitations and proving his mother wrong.
He might not be "manly" by her definitions but he would excel by other standards.
He turned his focus towards finance first. While many things were provided for him as a ward of the state, he couldn't help but want to establish his own base of resources. Due to his age at the time, he had to use proxies. He devoured books and papers on accruing wealth and succeeding in business. He started making fair amounts of money in stocks, researched brokerage houses, and eventually turned the bulk of the day-to-day proceeds with a firm that was small but had a reputation for being honest and fair. Once he was satisfied with their management of those assets, he merely scheduled time to go over their books and make the occasional adjustment. Now his time could be focussed on other matters.
He would prove that martial arts were not the only power, nor were they the greatest power.
Magic. Magic could rebuild him if he could master its secrets. Well over 99% of the material he could get his hands on was rubbish. Occasionally some gleam would indicate a further path to another gleaming nugget of truth. Ranma applied lessons learned to ferret out these bits of meta-reality. He began to formulate working theories and experiments and built upon these the rudiments of his new Art.
Which was when Ranma met a troubled young girl with some form of MPD. Though younger than himself, he saw a kindred spirit in this girl who was being loathed.
It had only been a brief time before Ranma learned there was more than some MPD involved. Some sort of possessing entity, he became sure of it the more he associated with Hotaru.
There it was - black magic. The more demonic evil nasty aspect of it. Ranma decided quickly that the one friend he'd made would not be made to suffer through this.
An attempt to go through a Shinto purification ritual with Hotaru "just for luck" had ended badly. Clearly the entity was hostile in the extreme and powerful.
It was for the sake of someone he cared for (though aloud he'd rarely admit it) that Ranma made the extra push and found enough magic to cripple and then later banish entirely the persona of Mistress Nine. After finding out about the Sailor Senshi a previous year and having discovered the identity of one, he'd made an anonymous phone call as to the goings on at Gakuen.
He'd made several of these in fact. Subtly guiding and advising these Sailor Senshi now that Hotaru wasn't a threat to them. He'd felt a bittersweet sense of loss when she had made friends with them and become Sailor Saturn. The only friend he really had and now she'd spend less time with him and more time with her new friends.
Hurt? Him? Oh heavens no. Just got something in his eye, that was all it had been. Actually he was able to concentrate that much more on his studies without having some girl around to pester him.
Which brought him to now, when he could feel disturbances in the timestream and a coming assassin.
Ranma's mouth quirked into a smirk. It looked like his second major magical battle would be coming soon. Perhaps it was just as well, since he needed to test himself and determine indeed if he was a Master Of:
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(Posted Thu, 29 Jan 2004 15:05)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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