You never will fully understand. I mentioned how that show is multicoded? Let ten different people watch that show and you'll get twenty different opinions. I lean to the common Ranma and Akane care for each other, and might be falling in love. I also subscribe to the less common: They're stupid idiot insecure damaged teenagers that can't let go of their pride long enough to actually communicate. They both need another six years to grow the frick up.
I can also recommend The Irresponsible Captain Tylor, Martian Successor Nadesico, and Rurouni Kenshin.
If you like slice of life love story anime without fantasy and explosions Maison Ikkoku is worth a look. Don't hear many people talk about it anymore.
Oh, okay. See, now I feel better about Ukyo being best gi- *Gets Shot*.
So at least my conviction that Ranma
didn't choose Akane is legit? I can get away with being an alt-waifu guy? Being an anime-only viewer? Excellent.
I've watched about half of Nadesico, but that was years ago. Might as well rewatch it... I keep getting Tylor gifs showing up on my tumblr dash, so that does look pretty fun... Rurouni I have no particular draw to... Same with Yu Yu Hakusho and Gundam Wing, I get the appeal but it's not my appeal.
As for Tenchi... I don't really
like Tenchi, even just from watching the first few episodes of Ryo-Ohki 1. It's like... I can't get over the niggling knowledge that Bubblegum Crisis, hands-down my favorite anime thing ever, died for
this. You know what I'm saying? It's not a legitimate reason to have a grievance, but it is a reason.
Anyway. I've got four episodes of the Lodoss OVA under my belt and, reading of its spinoff material (Crystania) I have a...
rough idea as to how to open an arc involving the 90's most classic fantasy LN franchises, I just don't know how to make it funny. D&D jokes can only go so far, so I guess I better go watch some Slayers?
Also! New Chapter! Last in this arc, too!
CHAPTER 11
Of course Ranma didn't know what that meant. But, dear reader, to understand the magnitude of the forces at play, let's pull back a bit, take no particular perspective, to see what hit Mara in the next second.
In the days of the Silver Millennium, when humanity was spread out across nine worlds and a hundred moons, all luscious and liveable, a hundred billion souls confident in the almighty power of Queen Serenity, Jupiter was the Second Sun, a brown-dwarf bastard star, fusion engines beaming energy out to the outer system. For the Jovians, the Saturnians, the Uranians, the Neptunians - even the rumored exiles who lived way out Pluto, Sedna, Eris - it
was their sun.
Saturn had wiped out so much - rewrote history such that ninety-nine point nine percent of those people, their colonies, their gigacities, their farms their temples their hopes their dreams their fury, none of it had ever been - but those megastructures, sucking in liquid hydrogen, splitting isotopes and smashing them together again - remained.
So when Jupiter said 'Great Red Spot!', all she did was open a portal to Engine Facility August and let it run at full capacity for a moment.
Superconductive metallic hydrogen containment engines quenched, heating the hydrogen gas to ignition, then plasmarization - a little under a hundred thousand degrees Kelvin. Compressed, accelerated in a structure twice the size of the LHC, suspended in the Spot by null-grav fields, a few dozen tons of ionized gas squeezed down into an aperture the size of a soccer ball, then portaled five AU into the apartment. Directed, of course, contained by Jupiter's own magic to not turn everything in five klicks into radioactive glass - but not directed all that much.
To her credit, Mara's super-infernal body lasted a whopping ten seconds before becoming subatomic particle soup. The rest of the apartment wasn't so lucky. Even Skuld's self-destruct hadn't been rigged for that much power, and so the penthouse simply blew apart.
And somewhere else, in a space that did not exist, Setsuna Meiou felt one of the Great Planetary Portals she'd entrusted to her charges open, then close.
She tapped her staff. Saw. Swore in three different languages that had, in the present time-process, never existed - the thick, lisping flow of Venusian, the clicking syllables of Mercurial, the infrasonic chant of High Martian.
Lady Jupiter breaking out her powers on such a level? Bad. A True Demoness sent back to Hel for the time being? Fine.
But one of hers in the room with a True Goddess? After all she'd done to hide the Silver Milennium from them?
Unacceptable.
Urd woke up. Felt what had once been concrete, heated up to molten glass, supercool around her, sticky in the worst way.
Okay, so she wasn't back in Hel. Her -
enemy - not Mara, the
Other one - would have gone 'Wakey-wakey, daughter', or something like that. She was - alive?
She pulled herself up as best she could. Cracked her neck - and looked right up into Peorth's face. She was steaming mad.
"YOU FILTHY ALGERIAN ASSWIPE! YOU BRAINLESS BEATNIK! YOU FUCKING-"
Urd raised a finger to Peorth's lips. "Okay. Okay. Okay. I get it. You're mad. The apartment got fucked up again. But think, Peorth, you can remodel it, right?"
"Oh-ho-ho-
ho ," the Rose Goddess deadpanned, "but that is not what I'm angry about. Did you see what happened? To Mara? Never mind that she was able to catch onto your plans, did you witness her annihilation?"
"Nope. Ranma took care of it, right?"
"
Zut Alors! I
wish !" She hoisted Urd up by her dress and whirled her around, the open sky and ruined apartment barely visible. "No, what happened is that Makoto Kino is
une fille magique !"
Urd blinked. "Oh. Like - Ririka? Emi? Creamy Mami? Like
that ?"
And then, she saw her. All done up in what was unquestionably magical girl finery. Practically
glowing with silver magic, unwet by rain (Ranma, she noted, was back in girl form). Majestic.
But… who
was Makoto Kino? Well, time to pop the question.
"Have we met?"
"No," the girl said. "You're Ranma's goddess, right? His - patron?"
"Yeah. So, what's with the getup? Are you-"
"I'm Sailor Jupiter! Thundering warrior of Love and Courage!" She posed. "I'll fill you with regret so hard, it'll leave you numb!"
Urd just stared at her.
"Seriously? Nothing? Nothing? Fought a bunch of demons a few years ago? Fought Chaos Incarnate? Stuff like that? We used to be on TV a whole bunch!"
Urd's gaze dropped off to the side. "Well, I've been away a few years, didn't really watch too much news when I was on Midgard, you know how it is…"
"Seriously?" Ranma was pulling herself up, one of her arms limp. "C'mon. Even
I've heard of these people."
"I mean…" Urd trailed off. "I'm literally the goddess of the Past. I should be able to track this kind of shit. History isn't just my bitch, I'm the bitch of history - wait, that came out wrong-"
"Well," Makoto said, "I've never heard of goddesses, either, so… Are you guys new? Were you around for the Silver Milennium?"
"The
what ? What the fuck are you talking about? Why label an entire thousand years after a goddamn
color ?"
"It is none of your concern."
The woman who had just come through a portal had forest-green hair, royal red eyes, skin just a little darker than Urd's, and an outfit fairly close to Makoto - no, Jupiter's. The staff, though, silver and shaped like a key - Urd couldn't look away from it. It was - it was
wrong . It was a hole in linear time, its aura bent and warped into a single line. A one-dimensional object, no matter what it
looked like.
The woman crossed the room. Grabbed Makoto's shoulder. "As for you, Lady Jupiter - this is a dangerous place. Destiny has leeway - but push it too hard and the future will break."
"Whoa whoa whoa," Urd said. "That better be a metaphor-"
"It is not." She turned. "You who call yourself divine know nothing of divinity. You who call yourself the Norn of No Longer know nothing of the past. And your sisters - even combined, you know nothing of time. Of the responsibility of keeping it."
Silence. "Ah. So you
are a time traveler. A little bit of a sacrilege, that."
"What you think is a crime for mortals - I say it is necessary. To ensure the present leads into the future. To ensure humanity still
has a future."
"Enough of this!" Peorth spat, pushing Urd aside. "The halfbreed may tolerate your sin, but I will not!" She whipped out a cellphone. "We'll see how smug you are when a Valkyrie platoon skystrikes you so hard you-"
Urd grabbed her wrist.
"What in the name of the Alfather are you
doing ?!"
"Relax," Urd said. "Whoever Jupiter is - whoever
you are - I'm not in a fighting mood. So." She turned to Makoto. "Care to explain your buddy to a humble goddess."
The other woman turned to Makoto. "Don't. She is not our ally."
"And Ranma?"
"Ranma who?"
"Oh." Makoto gestured to the sprawled out boy-girl on the floor. "Uh. Him."
"I see a woman - oh, no. A Jusenkyo Curse. Fascinating."
Peorth raised an eyebrow. "A what now? Urd, would you perhaps care to explain this?"
Urd batted the Rose Goddess away. "Don't worry about it. Just don't bother. Anyway, you were saying, Makoto?"
"Lady Jupiter, if you speak to her-"
"Oh come off it, Setsuna!" Makoto barked. "With you it's always Lady this Lady that! All about preparing for a future we'll never see! And the worst part is that you
never tell Usagi to do anything, but with
us it's always the same old thing! Avoid this, do that, ensure the future but you never
tell us what that future is supposed to be like! Even if we have our reincarnated memories back, that doesn't tell us what comes after this!"
"I have told you everything that you need to know within the boundaries of necessity," the woman - Setsuna, huh? - said, unmoved. "Any more, and I would undermine your free will to choose the right path. I have told you this already, and yet you do not listen."
A moment passed. Then Makoto said to herself: "Free will, huh? Then - you don't mind if I exercise that free will in a somewhat harmless way?"
"I do not anticipate harm. Do as you must."
"Great."
And with that, Makoto bounded over to Ranma, hefted the other girl up, and kissed her on the lips.
There was a Buckaroo Banzai-style crackle of electricity between them, and Ranma jerked back to life.
"Ugh!" she gasped as Makoto pulled back. "Gagh! Agh! Ack!" She looked up. "Oh. Hey, Makoto. Or, uh, Jupiter? Wassup?"
"Makoto is fine."
She looked at her with a warm light in her eyes. The same look Ukyo had given him when she'd tossed him that heart-shaped okonomiyaki - the same look Shampoo always had. For the first time, she didn't feel afraid of that look. "Okay. Makoto - what happened?"
"I unleashed my ultimate attack!" she chirped. "Never did it before in the field but
damn it was cool! I've gotta spam that one more!" She stopped. "Sorry I knocked you out there, though, so…"
"It's good. It's cool." The rain had stopped, she noticed. "I don't suppose I could get some hot water here?"
"Oh! Um. Yeah! Sure!" Makoto looked around. "Although I don't know where we could-"
Ker-SPLOOSH! Makoto looked up just as scalding hot water doused Ranma, turning him boy again.
(Ugh, she thought. Setsuna had a tendency to show off when she got annoyed.)
He looked at - who was she? Practically a
pillar of silver magic. Looked like Urd but with forest-green hair, holding this weird staff with a jewel the same color as her eyes. She cocked an eyebrow up.
"Ranma Saotome," she said, and her voice had an edge to it.
"Yesssssss?"
She strode up to him, grabbed his collar, hoisted him up. Looked at him dead in the eye.
"You have the affection of Lady Jupiter, Princess of the Galilean Protectorate, Mistress of the Second Star. More than that, you have her trust. Do not violate it."
"Yesmaam," he squeaked out. "Igotit."
"See that you do." She waved her staff, and something big and portal-y materialized. She strode back over to the portal, motioned Makoto to it - then looked at Urd.
"Do not attempt to follow me, Norn," she said. "Where I go is not someplace meant for you."
"Wasn't planning on it," Urd said, still holding Peorth in an armlock despite looking half-dead. "I'd rather kick your ass with the fullest of confidence now, then fight you in this state later."
Ranma sighed. "Can we not do this? Last thing I want is for me an' Mako to be in some kinda Romeo-n'-Juliet way. Can we just all agree to hate each other silently? Instead of, y'know-" here he gestured out to the ruins their fight, and Makoto's attack, had wrought "-this?"
The green-haired woman cocked an eyebrow. "Odd. That's - an unexpected timeline branch. Ranma Saotome, rational. But I can abide by that."
"Uh." He shrugged off that little insult. "I - don't have a phone, Mako, so-"
"Oh!" Urd said. "That's easily solved." With that, she booped Peorth on the head, let her go, and grabbed her phone. "Here. Mishima Electronics' latest cellular model, because even divinities apparently need human frivolties." She tossed it to Ranma. He caught it.
And for the next few minutes, the two teenagers futzed around with a Mishima Electronics Conektotron S300 and a Sailor Quantum Communicator, struggling to figure out how to exchange phone numbers properly while Urd held Peorth down and Setsuna just rolled her eyes and tapped her foot.
And then that was it. He had a goddamn cell phone, a stiff little thing with a screen he had to squint to see properly. And he had a girl's phone number, something Hiroshi and Daisuke would have legit killed a man for (and which Gosunkugi probably
had ).
And as Makoto hopped through the portal, he realized: she really did have the nicest smile.
Time passed. Then, Peorth said:
"So I suppose you're under the illusion you won this bet?"
Urd grinned. "No illusions here. It was your idea. 'Sides, I tvported the fiancees away through that cellphone, didn't I? Least you can do is use
your repair magic to clean up this mess."
"
Suce ma bite métaphorique! Lèche mon clitoris, salope féconde! You drove Mara here, it was because you two can't get over fighting each other that my apartment was blown to smithereens again! I shan't spend a quantum of my magic on your failures as a goddess,
métisse-"
Urd grabbed her by the wrist. "Say that again. Call me a halfbreed again, I
dare you."
Okay, Peorth thought, maybe she'd crossed a line there.
For Urd looked - different, in that moment of near-rage. Peorth was old the way all divinities were, reincarnated over millennia, cycled through everytime a
Gotterdammerung came around. Old, but she kept her youthful outcome.
What she saw in Urd's eyes was something else. Millennia of shame, fear, exhaustion carved into features that had seen the progenitors of humanity spread across the Earth, had been joyed to watch them rise and shamed to watch them fall, features that
shouldn't have been old at all. But all the same, she was old enough to have seen the nebula that had become Sol collapse, old enough to see the galactic super black hole fold in on itself to become what it was now, old enough to see
everything .
Urd was the Norn Of No Longer. For the first time, Peorth knew what that meant. All too well.
"I… I'll fix the apartment up. Is that - is that good? Are we good, Urd-"
And then it was gone, and she was smiling, catlike. "Awesome! Knew you'd come around eventually. It's nice to be right, isn't it?"
"Yes, I suppose it is…"
"Cool. I'm gonna go buy some more sake on my stipend. We'll split, okay?"
"As you wish."
Peorth silently resolved to spend more time away from her penthouse. Maybe buy another one in, say, Nagoya? Nakano? Wherever. Just - not in the presence of
her .
TWO HOURS OF REPAIR MAGIC, AND ONE HOUR OF NOT DRINKING THAT MUCH SAKE (SURPRISINGLY ENOUGH) LATER
Ranma still didn't have a bed.
Peorth had said she'd get one for him, fill out the guest room she'd never bothered to do anything with, and he said it was fine, he just wanted a futon and a blanket, he'd be good with that. Because, well, he would. And, more than that - Peorth looked spooked in the worst way. Like Urd just glaring at her had unlatched something in her…
Nah. Couldn't be. Urd was a total goofball. Except…
He got off the couch. Urd was splayed out on the other couch, curled up on herself.
What was that part about her being half-demoness? Her mother was the Forest of Fronds or something? Had Mara meant that? Urd seemed to be nice enough, but demons could be nice for their own purposes, right?
Her eyes fluttered open. She looked at him for a long time.
"It's about the demoness thing, right?"
"I-"
"Yeah. I know." She stretched out, pulled herself up. "You're not the first one to get freaked out about that. Everyone - everyone puts up a wall when they hear about that."
"Oh."
"It's fiiiiine." She laughed, waved her hand. "I don't need people to be my besty-best friends or anything, Ranma. In your case, I just need to be your Hot Fairy Godmother, and that's it."
"Oh." What was he supposed to say to that. "That seems like a pretty shitty way to go through life."
"Well - yeah. It comes with the territory."
"The territory?"
Urd leaned back. "Look, Ranma, I'm really not in the mood to give an hour-long lecture on meta-astrophysics. So you either get the abridged version of this explanation, or you don't get it at all. You can go read some Jung later if it helps."
"I just… you're not going to sell my soul to your mom or nothin' are you?"
She went stiff. "Hild is my mother the same way Genma Saotome is your father, okay?" she snarled. "We matter to each other about as much. She
barely birthed me - just happened to end up with the office of Absolute Evil after the last Ragnarok reincarnated us all. I was
born to be a Norn - and the past is such a mixed thing, you know? So the moment my genesis happened, I had access to just about everything that had ever happened. Every breath another mortal had ever taken at birth? Welcome to the world? I
knew that. She had nothing to do with it, but she acts like she does."
"Oh." What was he supposed to say to that? "So she's, like, a deadbeat? Huh."
"Yes!" Urd sprang forward. "And the craziest part about it is that bitches like Peorth still think I'm
hers ! Even though it was Tyr, our high-and-mighty All-Father, who contributed the male essence for the ritual! I'm as divine as the rest of em', but they all think I've got about as much moral integrity as Loki Himself!"
She stopped. Breathed. "I'm sorry. I - you don't need to know about my stupid bullshit, I just-" She breathed some more.
An idea came to Ranma. He was certain it was a bad idea. But how bad? Fuck it.
He stood up, and hugged Urd.
She froze. Went silent. Seemed to forget to breathe. More time passed. Outside the window, the moon shone.
Then, silently, she hugged him back.
And somewhere out in the summer night of Tokyo, 1996, Makoto Kino lay down to bed, and for the first time in a long time, didn't dream of tall, sad boys, and rain.
And somewhere else, Ukyo Kuonji dreamed of an okonomiyaki cart, a special sauce, and all the things she was never going to get back. Him, especially.
And somewhere else, Xian Pu, Mountain Princess, dreamed of honor lost, of the sucking water of Jusenkyo, and the honor she wanted more than ever to restore. With him, especially.
And somewhere else, Akane Tendo dreamed of a shrine, of the swarms of horny boys that had tormented her for months, of the mad tyrant who had driven them forward, and of the strange pigtailed boy who had beaten him but good.
She held P-Chan closer to her, and Ryoga Hibiki squirmed a little before settling into her chest.
And elsewhere, Kodachi Kuno dreamed of cheese, poison, money, and various combinations of those three elements unprintable in this fanfiction.
And in Niflheim, Hild, First of All Fiends, leaned back, thought for a moment, smiled, and said:
"Not bad, daughter. Not bad at all."
