Ranma fails at relationships (this is a known and established fact), the solution is therefore simple: None of the established Ranma cast wins,
Urd wins, through using a love potion (willingly, because at this point he'll try
anything) on Ranma, which Outside Context Problems his inability to have a relationship with the cost being that now Ranma is involved in
divine level shenanigans instead of the usual mortal martial artist level shenanigans.
Note: Ranma may not necessarily consider this to be a win.
Are you sure this is the case? Why, exactly, would Ranma fail at relationships on his own? That he'd just keep saying dumb shit? It feels to me more like Ranma doesn't get anywhere with the ladies because of Takahashi-tastic Shenanigans, and also because he's afraid of choosing one and unleashing mutually assured romantic destruction. Kind of a cowardly move, as Urd pointed out in the last chapter, but maybe Ranma's not as brave as he thinks he is, yeah? I'm not disagreeing, I just want to hear more about this Established Fact.
That being the case - hrm. The sort of physical age difference is kind of weird, but I could see, say, Peorth deciding to prove that she's the
real love goddess of the bunch and hooking them up together, while Urd desperately searches on their adventures for someone whose reaction to bared breasts is to get all uppity and say that
hers are bigger. It could work.
I think one of the best ways to let Ranma grow up, is putting him/her in a situation where almost all the learned martial arts skills, are practical useless.
Like say nBSG, sitting inside some civillian spaceship.
What is he going to do, then?
Get Ranma to think outside the box.
That will help with thinking his/her problems true & figuring out a out.
Ranma would probably ace Fallout, though.
Don't go too overboard, as well.
Try to keep it relative sane.
And if you don't like MCU Thor, then you don't like the Stargate Thor, either, right?
If Ranma was not so etical(?), you could use Assassins Creed games, like Black Flag, Unity and Syndicate (the London game).
Back then, hot/warm water was rare.
you could all way have urd transport ranma to different dimensions/universes, like 'this is the bad guy, go punch him in the face and i will pick you up in a week' sort of thing
Eh. Eh. Egh. Maybe. Step into STMPD's Office; I Have Internet Opinions.
Crossovers, in my mind, are a potent tool in fanfic but must be used with discretion. Isekai'ing characters by means of portals and other methods works to get character x in character y's home turf, but I think it's more interesting when universes are
merged like a big fat Cinematic Universe. Chris Davies' ancient megacrossover
Together Again 1996 did this in pretty much the time and place I'm fiddling around with - mid 90's Tokyo, where goddesses and magical girls and martial artists and even maybe a few aliens can cross paths and hang out. Genre, you see, is close enough that these worlds can be blended without it feeling forced. It's like my now-aborted project Song of Silverhand - BGC2032 and Cyberpunk 2020 are so close in their lore's ridiculous intricacies that it's not too big of a stretch to say they're the same world this whole time. Or, uh, Ghost in the Evangelion was a nifty idea that didn't always deliver but was a very earnest attempt at mixing the universes' disparate elements.
(Davies never did do El-Hazard. I like El-Hazard. Ifurita's a major babe, and the handful of longer fics that have been written in the universe are consistently excellent. Maybe that's a good way to do a straight isekai? Have Ranma face off against Magical Terminatrix Ifu-chan?)
To sum up - no, I don't think opening up the multiverse to punt Ranma around in would be fun, or funny, or really what I want to do with this fic. It's been done. Sometimes badly. Maybe well.
I'm also not sure throwing Ranma into a situation where he's y'know, on the bridge of the Enterprise-D where Anything Goes doesn't go at all (heh, pun) is a good way to make him grow up. The poor boy-girl needs to rely less on martial arts, yes, maybe try to make some regular friends, learn some other skills, make love and not war. But not do the thing he's good at? Not be encouraged to follow what is kind of already his passion in life? That feels almost cruel somehow. Like telling Herbie the Elf he's gotta make toys for Santa-Mart when his true talent lies in dentistry.
I wasn't thinking of moving Ranma permanently away so much as dangling a series of interesting fights in front of him. A few days here, a few days there, a day or so at 'home' to relax and beat up this week's Martial Arts and Crafts master, then off for another cool and unusual fight; he hasn't actually moved out, but he's spent most of the year off helping to punch badguys in the face, and hanging out with people who are more responsible than 90% of the Ranma cast.
Yeah. Yeah. After an establishing arc or two I think I can do that.
I wasn't thinking Responsible Adult in terms of Ranma Saotome, Attorney, but rather, Ranma Saotome, full-time Hero, as opposed to Ranma and the endless overblown schoolyard squabble with, to be fair, occasional actual heroing.
Ranma Saotome, Attorney? Nah. Neither was I.
In terms of culture heroes - hey, y'know what? Cu Chullain was pretty great in F/SN. Let's drag him out. Say Lind scooped him up after his death, and he's spent the last millennia or so being Scathach (an old ex-Valkyrie)'s husband. Cue Urd sending Ranma off to Dublin to battle some IRA sorcerers who want to resurrect The Morrigan, one of the Old Gods the Aesir spent much of the Middle Ages trying to perma-seal (why exactly are the Norse Gods running the universe, anyway? What happened to all those other pantheons? I have ideas), and Ranma teaming up with the Hound of Ulster to slug it out with thugs coked up on a magic drug called Riastrad after Cu Chullain's own infamous 'warp spasm'. Write the whole thing like Ulysses for funsies. Throw in a teenage Bazett Fraga McRemitz and you've got a fic.
Then, it's off to the islands around Stockholm where an abandoned particle accelerator (Tales from the Loop) has started up again - powered by ancient runestones, no less... Yeah. Yeah, I can work with this. It's not exactly comedy, but it could be a lot of pugilistic stupid
fun.
Certainly in the Anime, it seems like everyone is in love with their own idea of who Ranma is, or could be become; a large part of the problem is likely that Ranma hasn't had the time, tools, or to be honest the inclination to figure that out for himself, so how can anyone else have a clear impression of who he is and wants to become outside of the obvious.
Love, being that strange condition where another's happiness is more important (or perhaps even fundamental) to your own. I'd argue that, by that definition, few if any people love Ranma.
Arguably, at least by their actions, the people that most love Ranma are Kasumi, Dr Tofu and perhaps Hinako; clearly not in the romantic sense, but love no less. All three honestly want good things for him, and have not acted to harm him in ways other than in what they perceive to be in his interest.
(Edit: Fix gramma.) To take an extreme position; I'll argue that, for example, Sayuri, loves Ranma more than any of the fiancées do; She doesn't desire him to change to conform to her idea of him (a dislike of ranma-that-is) without finding out what Ranma (Edit
would be interested in changing about himself (end edit), but she wishes him well in the sort of vague way most people might wish well of others.
Fair. Fair. I don't wanna write the fiances out of the equation yet, though. I don't think they're all utterly toxic and think only of Ranma as their idealized spouse, only partially so. If nothing else, they're
funny toxic. They, too, can change as characters - shit, maybe a harem ending is the best route as in their shared desire to get Ranma 'back' from Urd, they learn to appreciate each other as humans? I'm sure that sort of arc has been done before, but it feels healthy and wholesome somehow.
But this is an interesting thing to explore! I agree Ranma has no goddamn clue what he wants to do with his life besides 'punch dudes', but I as an author have no idea what he would be otherwise. I expect I'll discover that as the fic goes on. I mean, a lot of scenes here I've written entirely off the top of my head, with characters bouncing off each other in ways that I didn't think I was going to write when I first sat down. You'll see what I mean in a bit.
By which I mean: I've got another chapter ready.
=============================================================================================================================================
A DAY LATER
"Skanks," Urd said. "Buncha crazy skanks."
Belldandy paused, sipped at her herbal tea. "That's an awfully cruel thing to say, Urd. I'm sure they're all just exhausted from being in love."
"Bell, I love you, but no." The eldest Norn flicked a bottle of sake over to her hand from across the little 6-mat apartment. It wasn't much, but, again, she was on a budget. She missed the temple - and her spacious 'Castle' - painfully. "These girls - whew."
Well, what the heck. At least her middle sister had come down from Asgard for a little emergency consulting, as kind and sweet as ever.
"What exactly makes you say that? To pass such judgements - it's not wise of you."
"Every single one of them attacked me within five minutes of meeting me," Urd growled. "Every. Single. One. That's not cool."
"Well, they've had a lot of difficulty with magical beings, is what their files say. And you can be very tactless when meeting new people. It's frightening to change the channel to something thematically appropriate before bursting out of a television. They need a kinder forewarning-"
"Sis. I went in through their front doors every time. And then the fourth one stalked me the whole time before ambushing me!"
"The one you stuffed in your trunk?"
"Yep. She came at the king. And she missed."
"Well, she was afraid you were trying to steal Ranma from her, right?"
"Bell, come
on. She referred to me - direct quote here - as a Cannibalistic Jungle Amazon from Darkest Peru. Girl before that thought I was Okinawan. Girl before that, a gyaru, whatever that is. And then this psychobitch called me - eh. I won't say it."
"Was it an - inappropriate word, sister? A Word of Power? A Blood Rune?"
"Starts with an 'N', rhymes with 'congress'. I'll say that much."
Belldandy's blue eyes, placid as a glacial lake, widened. "Oh my. That's - quite something."
"Yeah, and then she said she was gonna sic her clan's ninjas on me before I tranq'd her. Wasn't gonna take the risk of her doing that, so… yeah. She's still in my trunk. Was gonna tv-port her somewhere nice. Cuba, maybe. Bet a girl like her would be plenty welcome in Cuba."
"I see," Belldandy said. "So she can take a beach vacation while you decide what to do with Ranma! How thoughtful!"
Urd twitched. "Yeah. Sure. We'll go with that."
She continued. "And the others weren't much better. Akane? Basically Skuld but without the technowizardry and plus a tendency to beat up anything she feels sexually threatened by. So in denial of her love she's turned it around into absolute loathing. Shampoo? Can't speak his language, turns into a cat, which is the one thing he's afraid of to the point that apparently he starts thinking
he's a cat to cope or something stupid like that. Thinks of him as a mate as ordained by law of tribe and she'll drag him back to the boonies of China to screw him silly for the rest of his life. Not happening. Ukyo - something's off about her. Wants her childhood friend back to just hang out with. Too slow, you know? You don't go from that to bombing the guy's wedding so easily. So they're all paranoid psychos who won't give me the time of day because they think I'm in league with the other girls - which they're all willing to kill instead of giving up on my guy - or they think I'm actually his mom-domme."
Belldandy was silent. Sipped her tea. Urd could tell what she was thinking - were they
really that bad? Her middle sister never, ever wanted to believe that people could be so selfish. That all it took was a goddesses' hard work to turn good intentions into good actions. And, okay, nine times out of ten Bell was able to find the purity in the souls of even the worst sort of people - murderers, pedophiles, Westboro Baptists, etc.
But one time out of ten, she'd run across a real scumbag, and then she would act shocked,
shocked that people could behave in such a manner. She would never show her anger - she would just smile. Say that she wasn't mad, just disappointed, before leveraging first-class magic to render the offender into mincemeat. And then she'd hate herself for doing wicked, unforgiveable things, and Urd would calm her down, and they'd have a good cry - yeesh.
It was cute, but not really in line with her job right now. She didn't need to prove to her sister that she was
right per se. Just that she was
capable. This was
her contract.
"Well, then, Urd. You just need to make sure he's raised in a supportive environment full of responsible adults, right? Ensure that he feels loved and can love in turn," Belldandy beamed. "Then, if he's ready to be a true hero, he'll come to things in his own time."
"Oh, Almighty preserve us," Urd groaned. "Domestic life's even worse. His dad thinks raising him as a full-time kung-fu hobo, who wanders the world beating the shit out of other rando wandering kung-fu hobos, is a noble goal." She caught herself. "Not that that's a bad thing. Useful for the whole 'hero' business if mortals were still all agrarian quasifeudalists. Gotta be mobile, travel takes time and resources. But times change."
"How so?"
Urd let her chin rest in her hand. Looked out the tiny window of her one-room. Outside, Tokyo stretched on and on and on. "Whole country's connected by shinkansen, now. Lind says urban density means you can have more 'abnormal' magic in a few square kilometers now than all of Ming Dynasty China in any given month. Wandering just doesn't cut it, you know? What he needs is Batcave."
"Ah! Like that movie with Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee -"
Urd shushed her. "That one
does not count. Jim Carrey in anything other than slapstick comedy should be considered a heresy against the All-Father himself and punished thusly. If it were up to me, Joel Schumacher would have been blood-eagled years ago. But. Not the point. Point is - something like Batman - that's a model! They both have an absent parent or two, they both wandered the world learning the ancient arts of war in their boyhoods - if I can just shape the kid into a playboy billionaire with his own mansion Genji-style-"
Belldandy had been sipping her tea. She was slurping it, now, draining the little cup fast as possible. Once she had put her cup down, she said, with an uncharacteristic amount of sternness, "That is a terrible idea, Urd."
"Oh. How so."
Belldandy sighed. "If Bruce Wayne were a real man - he would be a sick man. A man who cannot accept that his parents were taken from him. A man who cannot move on. Obsessed with hurting others, with breaking their bodies instead of finding the light in their hearts. Why, he could use his money to industrially revitalize Gotham City, but instead treats it as his Gothic playground, his villains as things he must simply injure and incapacitate instead of
heal! He has no kindness in him, Urd, only hatred. Surely Ranma wouldn't descend to such a level?"
Urd blinked. "Girl. It's a comic book. Don't think about it like
that."
"Like what?" Was it her, or was Belldandy - angry? That wasn't good. Angry Belldandy had a tendency to erase civilizations from history on accident.
"Like, realistically. Not as a moral model for the universe. Just, y'know, something fun."
Her sister sighed. "All stories are real on some level, Urd. You know that as well as I do. Otherwise, we goddesses simply wouldn't exist. So please - every story you tell - think about who will be happy by the time it ends."
Okay.
That was why she called Bell down from Asgard. No one else she knew could do Belldandy-isms, vague and yet weirdly sentimental, like the Norn of the Now.
But.
"Whatever. Batman's just a metaphor at this point. My broader point is that his dad's a piece of shit, and his dad-in-law's not much better, and his fiances are unhinged. So I'd have to somehow introduce a responsible adult into his life as a role model. Damn."
Urd thought. And thought. And then an idea came to her.
"Ha! I've got it! If Ranma needs a responsible adult, he can have
me! I'm the eldest Norn, after all, not a lot of people with more responsibility than me!" Saying this, she hefted a nearby sake bottle and chugged half its contents in one go. "I'll rent a bigger apartment, get the kid a non-bat-man-cave, provide him with wholesome maternal love and care… Yeah. See, this is why I keep you around, Bell. To help me think up shit like this."
Belldandy cocked her head to the side. "That sounds like kidnapping, in all honesty."
"Well, is it kidnapping if in
not doing it, you're being a neglectful Hot Fairy Godmother?"
"I hardly think things are that desperate from what you've told me about him."
"Bell. The kid's dad dropped him in a pit full of feral cats wrapped in fish sausage when she was like eight. I think we passed the point of desperation somewhere between that and selling him off to like twenty different dads for marriage in the span of eighteen months."
"Ah. That is - true. But his mother seemed like a perfectly kind person! Being able to forgive his curse - even if he swore to her that seppuku pact-"
"Point. Point. Okay, but consider this: that katana-wielding cougar married his dad and then cut them loose with her only son to wander the world being forced into a continuous chain of childhood traumas for the sake of martial excellence. Worked, sure, in a very narrow definition of making a functional kid. So she was, ah, what's the English word?"
"In Cahoots?"
"Cahoots. Yeah. Yeah. It's like Iran-Contra. If you
really didn't recall, then you must be stupid bordering on senile, and the best thing for you is to get chucked into the big retirement home in the sky before you piss your pants on public television. Either that, or you're a bold-faced fat fucking liar."
Belldandy swallowed her tea, doing her best not to spit it out. "I think that simile got a little away from you, sister dearest."
"Feh. Yeah. Whatev. Point is, I don't trust that stab-happy harpy any more to raise a teenager any more than I trust the man-panda. But if I get extract him from his present solution at home - maybe allow him to still go to school and keep his acquaintances at a distance - then I can really do the work my contract demands I do. Make a real
hero out of him."
Belldandy had this funny look in her eyes. "I suppose, if that's really the function of your contract - but if Ranma's happiness is not considered, or at least you do not convince others around him that your abduction is for the best - you will make enemies of many people."
"So?"
"So please at least try to convince his mother that there is no reason to go after him. I will help you in any way I can in fulfilling this contract, sister dearest, but you must do that, at least. To act without thinking - it is at once your greatest strength and your greatest weakness."
"Ugh. You know me too well," Urd groused. "Fine. I've been checking out the mom a bit. She, uh, she's a teacher of all things. Vice Principal, actually. Carries that katana everywhere. Y'know what, fuck it, we'll get her now." She grabbed the remote, turned her little TV on, focused on Nodoka's home in Minato-ku - found the connection, the wire networks so many steps on a pathway through non-Euclidean space. "Wanna come with?"
Belldandy nibbled at a cookie. "Shouldn't you let poor Kodachi out of your car first? She must be going mad in there."
"Eh. We'll swing back and get her on the way. I'd have to bring her inside to tv-port her. Really would rather drag a blackbagged megacorp heiress into my little apartment at
night, thanks."
ONE TV-PORT LATER, Minato Juuban
Nodoka Saotome thought about the proposal the strange woman who had interrupted her T-Drama viewing just moments ago had put forward. A goddess, apparently. Dressed in a nice formal kimono, yes, but she clearly wasn't wearing anything underneath it. She had described Ranma's situation in extensive detail, yes, but she had paid particular attention to one girl whose name she
swore she knew, perhaps one of her students, ranting about how she'd called her a word which rhymed with 'express', which she apparently
wasn't - well. Hardly a blushing model of Japanese womanhood. But then again, so few girls were these days.
Ah, but her sister! How wonderful she was! She had immediately offered to clean up her little TV dinner and fix her something nice over in the kitchen, had brought in after-dinner sweets Nodoka didn't even know she had. As she nibbled at natto, she couldn't help but wonder - why couldn't more girls be like that these days? The sort of woman she had been when she won her husband's heart, and sent her little son off to become a true warrior…
She sighed. Had that been a mistake? She was unsure. The curse, yes - but the way of a true defender of chivalry was necessarily fraught with peril. In a way, Genma had been at once the best and the worst trainer of her child she could have conceived of.
"Well?" The elder goddess snapped her fingers a meter or so away from Nodoka's face. "You ready to make your son into a man among men?"
"I - you can do that?"
"Of course! Whole point of the deal, right?" Urd smirked. "I mean, you can still visit him every once in awhile-"
"Why not just have him come live with me? I appreciate the offer, Miss Urd, and I understand that you are at least dedicated to the
concept of Ranma as a heroic figure, but one gets awfully lonely out here." She sighed. "He has not come to see me ever since the wedding bombing. From what little I know of him, I wonder if he is afraid I am angry…"
Urd grimaced inside. She had
not anticipated this. Hadn't the lady basically kicked her kid out into the wild blue yonder with out so much as an imperative to write once in awhile? With that bamboo-munching bastard no less? Mortal minds were strange, especially this latest batch she'd had to deal with…
"Ah!" Belldandy piped up. "It's good to see that you care
so much for Ranma." Her placid smile unchanging, she continued. "What prompted this change of heart?"
Urd's neck swiveled to look at her little sis. Had she - had she just
burned Ranma's mom? Dayum. She'd thought Bell had been more laid-back than ever after getting hitched with Keiichi, but wow. Brutal.
Nodoka seemed to flinch, just a little. "Exactly what do you mean by that?"
"Well - I intend to bear children with my partner soon, too. So I've been talking to my mother about such things, and we're of the opinion that really, a soft, gentle touch is needed. And - this is the saddest thing, because there are so many mothers out there who just can't provide that without some help."
"Ranma is a
martial artist, is he not?" Nodoka's mind was steadily going from 'diplomacy mode' to 'battle stations." Inside her brain, insults were being loaded, armor was being mounted, denials refuelled. "He has lasted this long, has he not?"
Okay. Urd wasn't really sure where she fit in with the verbal catfight going on here. Might as well be the bad cop to Bell's good cop. "Sure has! You've let Genma run the whole show with your only son and look where it's gotten him! Bombed-out weddings! A hapless tomboy with anger management issues that make Cu Chullain look like Balder! He dropped the kid in a pit full of feral cats for 'training'-"
Nodoka, her posture unchanged, spat high-pressure green tea all over the place. Wiped herself off. Swallowed. Tried to recover the conversation's dignity. "He what."
"Ah."
That was the ticket. "Hubby never told you, eh?" Urd leaned in, smug as could be. "Never told you about the cats. Figures."
"What about the cats?"
Urd told her. Left nothing out. Watched as Nodoka's already wide eyes widened to the approximate size of dinner plates. Watched as her hands began to shake. Belldandy, for her part, looked a little annoyed, but what-ever. This was, as Skuld would say, the premium memeium.
"I see," Nodoka choked out. "I - I have made an egregious mistake in my choice of husband, it seems. Please forgive me. Ranma must be removed from his grasp entirely."
"I just am so surprised that Ranma never told you," Belldandy said. "He must be very embarrassed about -"
"Oh, of
course he's
embarrassed," Nodoka said, her voice steadily dropping, her eyes glazed over. "To have such a weakness - it will bring dishonor down upon the entire clan. I - I took a risk, you understand, marrying Genma. I had hoped to bring unorthodox talent into my bloodline in order to strengthen our future fortunes. I had hoped the wild horse could be tamed by good Confucian values. I am a complete idiot."
Urd looked around. She had this weird craving for popcorn right now but knew better than to ask for any.
"I - am I unworthy of raising a child? The fruit of my womb? He must hate me. Of course he would. To not bring that soft touch to my little baby boy-"
"Oh no!" Belldandy chirped. "I'm sure Ranma loves you. And he'll love you even
more if you leave him in our care. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and Urd is quite good with the soft touch in many senses of the word."
"Hey now…" Urd's gaze flicked over to her sister, then back to Nodoka. Dang. What stage of grief was she at? She could never remember them - Id? Ego? Superego? Partypooperego? No. Wait. Shit. That didn't count.
"Very well then!" Nodoka shouted suddenly, slamming her hands on the table, her teacup bouncing and unceremoniously falling onto the floor. "If that four-eyed fatso thinks he can send my bloodline on the road to roninhood,
he's got another thing coming! If you goddesses can make Ranma a hero for our times - a symbol of Japanese manhood in this post-economic-bubble hellscape of a city -
then I will do what I can to guide him as well! If you believe he needs independence from his mommy dearest to truly flourish - then I'll just have to make you
provide weekly progress reports!"
Saying this, she stood up and brandished her katana - unsheathed, not that that made Urd feel any better - with ferocity that would have made even Tatewaki Kuno quiver just a bit. "Listen well!" she barked. Urd could have sworn some sort of fancy-ass Ukiyo-e - crashing waves, thunderbolts, all that - had manifested behind her - was this the Saotome School's battle aura.
"You two shall be Ramna's babysitters -
for now! If you do not satisfy my requirements for a truly manly man, then divinity or not this blade shall strike you down with all the strength my ancestors can provide me! But -
but! If you can tame the wild horse, shape his blade into the shape of thousand-folded steel-"
"That sounds kinda painful honestly-" Urd quipped.
"SILENCE! CEASE YOUR QUIPPING, YOU TANNED TRANSGRESSOR! LET ME FINISH MY MONOLOGUE! IT WAS JUST GETTING GOOD!"
"Okay." Urd gulped.
"Yes," Nodoka gushed, "If you can make him what I desire, then I -
THE UNWAVERING WIND OF TOMOBIKI PRIVATE HIGH SCHOOL! - shall accept you as my divine patrons, and erect a Torii in your honor over Ise Shrine itself!"
"Ah, how kind of you, Miss Nodoka, but we don't really need such things," Belldandy said. "We goddesses have no need of public worship icons, especially since we are most pointedly
not Kami."
"Yeah," Urd said, "I mean, we'd honestly rather Ama-rama not feel like we're edging in on her turf."
Nodoka glared lasers at her. No, not daggers. This was more a lasers vibe for sure.
"Of course we'd be more than happy to accept any form of honor you deem suitable!" she squeaked. "Uh, I'll email you weekly reports if he's not in the field, we'll definitely make this work
for sure. But, if you don't mind me asking, uh, what was the Unwavering Wind bit about?"
"Ah! That was my official title at my high school kendo club! I was the captain, of course. They called me other things in private, but in public, they knew I was unstoppable."
"How wonderful!" Belldandy chirped. "Well, then, oh my! Look at the time! I hope I wasn't interrupting anything!"
"Oh no!" Nodoka cooed, switching from
shonen to
shoujo in the span of about three seconds. "I'm so glad you came! Really helped to liven up this poor old woman's life. Um, the back door is that way, or you could just leave through the television, if that's your preferred method of transportation."
"Sure is!" Urd said. "Uh, thanks for letting me go through with this! See ya in a bit! Uh, so long ran-mom!"
She jetted across the room and into the TV. Belldandy turned to follow her, then stopped as the screen stopped rippling and stiffened into glass again. "Ah, Urd! I'm sorry Miss Saotome, but - I move via mirrors. May I please use your washroom?"
"Of course, of course. Do the divine - you know - do they have movements as we humans do? I've always been curious…"
Belldandy flushed a deep red. "Ah- I- Please excuse me for a moment!"
And she rushed out of the room.
Nodoka sighed. Took in everything that had just happened. Tried to process this -
passion she felt for being a Mom among Moms. Perhaps - perhaps it was time to relive the old ways.
She got up, turned, and went to fetch her old Fist of the North Star VHS, humming her old battle theme from those tournaments so long ago…
In the garage near Urd's pad
Her pink Cadillac stood out, among the white and grey Hondas and Subarus and other dull-as-dirt rice-burners. That was the point, of course. Lind had kept forwarding her email about changes to administrative policy which would 'place more emphasis on covert operations in high-media coverage areas', which was Lind-speak for 'make sure no goddess ever gets a chance to have fun because I sure as hell don't'.
She had asked Lind what she did for fun, once. She, uh, polished her armory. Took maintenance of her transconceptual weaponry, from her halbred to the guns that didn't have proper Midgard names
yet, very seriously.
She beeped the trunk as she strolled towards her car. Tried not to think that she was probably going to have to send weekly progress reports to that slip of a madwoman. Not because she feared the Saotome matriarch's wrath, but because Belldandy would be watching very intently when she wasn't doing her job up in Asgard, and she would be not mad, but very disappointed in her beloved older half-sister, if such a thing were to happen. Ugh. Whatta day.
"Well," she muttered to herself, "At least I've got you under wraps, you leotard-wearing lunatic, so-"
She popped the trunk. Did a double take.
Black rose petals. Real ones, spilling out of the trunk. A black rose with a note in scribbled kana wrapped around it. Impossibly tiny text, reading:
So! You think you have bested me, you-
She tried her best not to read the following word-
But as it happens I have friends in, let us say, low places! Infernal places, in fact!
Yes, that's right, you mocha-skinned maniac! With the help of my very best friend, and the other harridans you intend to keep Ranma from loving as such a man surely must - you shall be struck down! Rendered so much dust in the wind, which will then, pardon my Leninist metaphor, dumped into the dustbin of history! And as your microparticles drift off into the cosmic ether, know this: Whether in love or in war, the Black Rose always
takes the dominant position! OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOOOOOOOOOOOO!
And then. In even
tinier handwriting.
P.S.: Mara here! Your mom says she's looking forward to watching you fuck this contract of yours bad. Don't worry, you can always
renounce your stupid butthead dad and come back to my waiting arms and aple bosom, where we can finally unite under the Elysian Fields as it was meant to be - DEMON AND DEMON, TOGETHER AT LAST. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAawfuck i ran out of room one sec
Smaller handwriting. Microscopic, practically:
-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Love, Mara XOXOXOXOXO
PPS: Mistress Hild says the boy is hers~
Urd processed all of that for about five seconds.
Then, she grabbed the rose, tag and all, and tossed it a good distance away, seconds before the timed explosive embedded inside it detonated and set off every car alarm in the garage.
She did not hear the simultaneous howling of a hundred automobiles. She thought.
After several minutes of mental gymnastics, she finally said to herself:
"Son of a
bitch."
==========================================================
Next time - you know what, I'm gonna do these like the 'next episode' slugs from the anime. Put on your best Noriko Hidaka voice:
Kodachi Kuno, the Black Rose, is back - and she's called us girls together for a meeting! Teaming up with a demoness seems pretty sketchy - but I can't let that goddess spirit Ranma out of our lives! We'll have to put aside our differences and fight for the love we all share, even if that means doing the work of the infernal realm! And - what's this? EHHH?! A familiar face returns from college, and she has her own plans to share! Kasumi - who can I trust anymore? My heart beats with an unfamiliar rhythm...
Next Episode! The Ranma Liberation Front suits up for war - for love - and for justice! 'In which Antagonistic Forces conspire against the goddess and our hero!', or something like that! Look forward to it, only on AO3 and Sufficient Velocity!
Ahhhhhh, this goth-loli stuff makes me look like a pervert...
