No matter how much I might love the Worm fandom/fanfiction at the moment, I still remember being...
Martial Arts Miko in the Land of Fantasy (Ranma/Touhou)
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Chapter 1: Workin' For A Livin
Chartic
Literally the Worst Human in the Fandom
- Location
- St. Paul
No matter how much I might love the Worm fandom/fanfiction at the moment, I still remember being a wide eyed middle schooler first getting into the fanfiction scene through Ranma. I've always wanted to write a fanfiction based off of it but the ones I wrote around that time were...less than spectacular (partly why I never read any fanfics with SI's in them...don't ask). Well, I wanted to improve my writing ability and have plenty of ideas bouncing around so I thought, why the hell not and wrote this little story up. Let me know what you think, how I can improve, all that jazz please.
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In the village where people were not, the setting sun had cast a room into shadows. The patio doors had been opened wide, brightening the room with the remnants of the evening light. Like a picture framed by the doorway, a mountain range shaded in the colors of autumn blocked a red sun, shining down onto Gensokyo valley. All of which was lost on the room's sole occupant, her attention instead focused on a letter lying on the low table in front of her. Her hand flowed through deliberate movements as she carefully composed her final thoughts. From a connecting hall, a hand reached out and gave three soft knocks on the interior wall. After no immediate reaction was given by the sitting figure, a voice softly called out, "Yukari-Sama?"
A blonde head peeked through the door into the living room. Short blonde hair framed a pale, triangular face. She stepped slightly into the room, her long housedress swaying with the motion. Her hands slipped into their opposing sleeve and she stood waiting to be addressed, as a proper familiar should. In the dim light you could almost mistake her for a mother looking over her child, except for two large discrepancies. Nine large, furry tails came out from underneath her housedress, curling themselves around her back, and two pointed fox ears had been covered by a white hat, which sat on her head.
Yukari took only a moment away from her writing to give a nod of greeting to her Shikigami. Blonde hair flowed down to her mid-back covering a fraction of her large dark-purple dress. A light-pink puffy hat was placed on her head, matching the parasol that leaned against the table next to her. While her Shikigami could be mistaken for a young adult, Yukari was unarguably a woman deep into her adulthood. Not a wrinkle could be found on her face, but one could tell at a simple glance her maturity. Unfortunately this maturity did not make itself evident in her actions; mischief had set itself into her eyes, into her smile, an idle whimsy had suffused itself throughout her very being.
"Are you finished Ran?" She asked, not taking her eyes off of the paper as she set the brush down beside it.
"Yes Yukari-sama, I've placed the ad in the paper as you asked." She said, entering the room fully, to stand behind her mistress.
Yukari hummed in acknowledgement and began to blow on the ink to help it dry. A small gap opened up in the air in front of her, which she pulled a ribbon out of. The letter was quickly rolled up and the ribbon used to tie it off. "Now, we wait for him to take the bait."
"Yukari-Sama, if I may ask…why? Why go to such lengths to bring him here? Even if he is peculiarly strong for a human, he is not a youkai, he will not belong."
Yukari pushed herself back from the table and got on her feet. "It has been several years now since he first attracted my attention Ran, and I have been tempted to invite him to Gensokyo for just as long; far before his little incident with Saffron-chan. With events progressing the way that they have, I've been given a unique position to take advantage of. It would be remiss of me not to invite him for a brief visit, would it not? I may not get a chance like this again, and I would hate to have someone so promising fall into a tedious life of training children, when he could achieve so much more. After all, there are very few people, even Youkai, who have been quite as well traveled, won against such large odds, or made quite as many enemies and lovers." She said the last word with a wink.
"Yukari-sama, please don't dodge the question." Ran said with a shake of her head. "I understand your interest in…entertaining humans but that does not justify going to such lengths to bring him to Gensokyo. He is strong for a human but he would not be able to hold up against any of the stronger youkai. His method of fighting is completely unsuited for a danmaku battle and fighting. If he continued to fight as he does now he would bring all manner of youkai down on his head. All he would bring to Gensokyo is chaos."
Yukari gave her familiar a smile that denizens all over Gensokyo had learned to hate. "Why Ran, you've answered your own question! Aside from that, fresh blood may do us some good. Gensokyo needs men after all." She finished with a wink.
Ran hung her head and sighed. 'Of course that is why you did it Yukari-sama. I had hoped, in vain, that I would get a more serious answer.' Ran thought to herself
Yukari tactfully ignored the dour expression her familiar gained after hearing her answer. "I have one more task for you Ran. I need you to deliver this letter to our little red and white miko. It should explain everything that she will need to know in the coming week."
"Of course Yukari-sama."
"Perfect," Yukari finished, stretching her arms above her head with a yawn and becoming obscured by shadows as she headed deeper into the house. Now I'm going to be taking a long nap Ran. Wake me when he calls."
"As you wish Yukari-sama."
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Chapter 1
Workin' for a Livin'
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The decision to leave had come suddenly. Or maybe not. Maybe it had been at the back of his mind the entire time, waiting for the perfect moment to present itself. Ranma Saotome, aquatranssexual heir to the Saotome school of Anything Goes Martial Arts, was loading his backpack as quickly and as quietly as he could. He was taking what's his (which admittedly was not a lot), and getting the hell out of dodge before anyone noticed he was missing.
His old traveling pack was almost always prepared with the essentials in case he needed a quick escape into the wilderness for a "training trip". This time, however, he was taking a bit more than the basics. While his room was fairly Spartan there were still plenty of knick knacks, clothes, and odds and ends from his many adventures and lengthy time in Nerima littering the place. Even a little bit of money and valuables he'd managed to hide from both Nabiki and his father. All of these possessions were stuffed away as quickly as he could manage without giving away his current activity. This time the pigtailed martial artist was not planning on a quick little trip out to the country to hide out for a few days. He was fairly certain that when he left, he was not going to be seeing Nerima for a long time; at least as long as he could help it.
Maybe he didn't need to bring absolutely everything he had gotten over the years, but he thought it better to have his things with him than have his father or Nabiki pawn it off for some extra cash. He didn't want to lose any mementos of his adventures over the years due to someone else's greed. There was also the principle of the thing to consider. If he ended up leaving things in his room, it would still feel like it was his room. Unless he was running away with everything he owned strapped over his back, it was almost like a promise to himself that he would return. It was a bit like his time on the road as a kid really, but less of a chance of jail time and more of bodily harm. Hidden weapons may have been a good alternative, but there was nothing like a solid traveling pack. It was the principle of the thing really.
The Tendo Dojo had been his home for the last two years, for better and for worse. He had experienced a lot of the modern world since then, progressed further in the art by leaps and bounds with each new challenger that faced him, found a few girls that he had felt affection towards, and been manipulated into doing a lot of things he regretted. Despite the chaos that seemed to wrap around him like a cloak, he had managed to keep everything fairly calm in the end; solved every problem that arose, defeated every rival and beat down every supernatural being that had come to cause a ruckus. It had kept things interesting at the very least and a status quo had erected itself in the chaos. Hell, through it all he had even managed to enjoy some of the madness.
That disaster of a wedding had changed everything.
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Ranma had always held the belief that he would be able to take control of his situation. That at some point he would be able to find the key to fixing everything without hurting anyone's feelings, ruining any honor or causing lasting harm to anyone. Sure, to the outside observer that idea would seem absurd, but Ranma was not looking in from the outside, he was caught right in the middle of this chaos nexus. Every new problem was just another fight to win, every new fiancée was someone who would realize at some point he did not want to be with them, and with the regularity that they came and left his life, it was difficult to realize how quickly his problems had begun to stack up. The wedding was just everything coming together in one star-studded event.
Every single little lie, every reassurance he had told himself about the way that things were going, had been proven wrong that day. It would have been easy to place the blame on Nabiki (not that she would ever accept it) for the prominent role she played in the destruction that had taken place but in the end it wasn't really her fault. No, she was just a catalyst, someone that had set that bomb off a bit quicker than it normally would have. If she hadn't let everyone know about the wedding, somehow, someway, they would have figured it out and arrived on their own. The rivals and fiancées would have come charging in to disrupt the ceremony; the vows would have been interrupted with or without the middle Tendo.
His life had become a self-perpetuating cycle of fights, with no clear way to end it. If he wanted to stop the rivals from coming after him, he would need to cancel the engagements to the women they loved. He couldn't break off any of the engagements without ruining his own honor or someone else's. Even then, there would still be people crawling out of the woodwork to take a shot at him for being the best or just to have him fix one of their problems. The only real way he could end the chaos was by doing the one thing he could never do; tarnishing someone's honor, most likely his own.
Well, except for the Kunos. The only way he was going to get rid of them was in a police cell, a morgue or a psychiatric ward.
And the amazons too. No way were they going to be leaving his life unless he was either married to Shampoo or Jusenkyo was wiped off the map.
You know what, no one was going to be leaving him alone. Even if he somehow managed to break off every engagement, hide away from every person, demon, and spirit that has a grudge against him, there would still be people harassing him every moment of his life. He was too tangled up in everyone else's expectations of what he should do and be; no one was going to accept him leaving just through talking. Hell, beating everyone down probably wouldn't help either; it had never stopped anyone from coming back before.
And Akane, at the very middle of everything, moments after their wedding had fallen apart, had reacted as she always had. It had been admittedly in the middle of a very strenuous situation, but he had finally told her that he loved her. He had rescued her more times than he could remember. He had even killed for her.
The overgrown chicken had managed to come back from it, but still, it was the principle of the thing.
When he had seen Akane smiling in her wedding dress, all the problems and arguments that had built up over the years just faded away. Her smile had always been his favorite thing about her, and seeing it at the altar had cemented the moment together. It was what he had always imagined his wedding would be like, well maybe not the part about getting knocked out, but after he woke up it had all seemed pretty much perfect. But as soon as everyone showed up, as soon as the moment was broken, he was just "the pervert" again, only to be treated with anger, disdain, and the end of a blunt object. The only times they had spoken to each other over the last week had led to or started off as arguments, which always ended with him booted through the roof, the fathers yelling at him to apologize, and a new bill from Nabiki for what her sister had done. Right now they needed time away from each other to cool off; something they wouldn't get with the fathers pushing them together and everyone else trying to pull them apart. Although, the real reason he wanted time away was something he wasn't willing to admit even to himself. Akane's dismissal of him, after everything that had happened over the last month, had hurt. Every silent glare or petty insult ripped into him like a barb. He needed time to himself if he was going to be able to forgive her.
The only good thing to come out of the failed wedding had been a save from Happosai of all people. The moment he saw that deformed pervert chugging the cure for his curse thinking it was sake, he had been willing to beat him to death. If he hadn't been caught up in the chaos of the weddings "after party", than he may well have tried. The fight he had put the aging grandmaster through the next day had been the most brutal encounter between the two martial artists, perhaps the most brutal fight he had been in aside from Saffron. If not for the level of control the two had, it would have undoubtedly ended in bloodshed. The fight had changed from the beat down he had intended, to the most technically challenging duel he had ever been in. He had pushed Happosai farther than he had ever seen him go, and likewise been forced well past his normal limits, burning through techniques and abilities before the two had finally just collapsed. The talk they had afterwards had been entirely unexpected, illuminating, and had been so helpful he still was questioning if it hadn't been an exhaustion induced hallucination.
It hadn't been an accident that Happosai had gulped down the water from the spring of drowned man before anyone could get their hands on it. As he had explained, the curses didn't override one another, they combined. Like Taro with the spring of drowned octopus, a new curse was added on to the existing one, which left worrying thoughts on what would have happened if he had managed to grab the cask before Happosai got to it. While the grandmaster of anything goes was many things, a pervert, drunkard, cruel, and generally an unlikeable person, he was by no means willing to let his chosen heir ruin the small bit of normalcy that the curse allowed him to have. Ranma did have a sneaking suspicion that the aging martial artist had been more concerned about keeping Ranko entirely female more for his own pleasure than Ranma's sanity, but he preferred not to dwell on that idea. After all, he had managed to walk away from the conversation not only with a feeling of satisfaction but also several fancy new scrolls bumping around in hidden weapons space.
A mastery scroll and several advanced techniques of anything goes had been burning a hole in his hammer-space pocket for a few weeks. Normally Ranma would have already dissected the techniques, pissed off enough people to get a few good fights in to figure out how they worked, and then integrate them into his normal martial arts style. Unfortunately, at the moment he did not have the luxury of going around picking fights and was would prefer no one finding out he was now an official master of anything goes.
Things had fallen into a balance (as balanced as anything could be in Nerima) and he was hesitant to break it. Getting his masters just felt like another step on the never-ending road in the life of a martial artist, but to others it could be a worrying sign of independence. The father's would be worried that he was not under their thumb, his fiancées would worry that he is getting more options for what to do with his life, and his rivals would worry he had that bit more power to lord over them. Everyone would believe that something big was about to happen and if anyone thought that some big change was going to occur, everyone would panic and try to be the first ones to get their hooks in him. At least that was how Happosai had phrased the whole thing to him. He hadn't really understood it but was more than happy to keep everything as peaceful as he possibly could.
Ranma shook his head to get his mind back on track. It was a little too late to worry about causing a splash now. He had already set himself down this path. Despite everything that had happened over the past few months, the fiancées, rivals, the fights, Saffron, the wedding, he hadn't chosen to leave because things had become too hard to deal with. Ranma Saotome didn't lose, and he wasn't willing to admit defeat with the situation in Nerima until things were truly and utterly hopeless. And even then he would probably stick around a little while longer to see things through.
An errant thought bubbled up in the back of his mind, noting how that perfectly described what he had been doing in Nerima for the last few months, but he banished it away as quickly as it came.
No, the wedding hadn't really been a breaking point for him. Just another shitty situation in a long series of them. It had been a painful experience, no doubt about that, but he would have just stuck around like he always had, let things continue as usual. The problem was, there were a few more complications than just tensions in Nerima skyrocketing.
The dojo had been wrecked, and that was putting it gently. Holes had been punched into every surface from people and things being tossed through them, parts of it had been burned from the bombs that were being thrown around, beams, walls and floors had been cracked from weapons and bodies slamming into them. After the abuse it had suffered, it was a miracle that the dojo was still standing at all. For parts of it, even calling it standing was a stretch.
The fathers had been absolutely furious, with old man Tendo surprisingly taking the lead role instead of following whatever his father did. They had yelled, screamed, and ordered him to either pay for the damages or fix the entire thing himself. Nabiki hadn't been as overt in her manipulations, though had been much more threatening. There had been references to making his life hell, insinuations that he was the one entirely at fault, allegations that his honor was in question unless he did something, and his debt to her had been dangled over his head. He was sure that she already had a series of photo shoots planned for the future, knowing he didn't have the cash. The money she had been making off of him through the betting pools and photos just barely covered the cost of repairs to the household (at least as far as you could trust Nabiki to tell the truth), ground zero of this disaster was an entirely different story. He did feel bad, he had been the focus of the entire fight and the only reason that everyone had shown up to trash the place, but at the end of it he refused to take the sole blame. He hadn't been the one to cause the damages to the dojo and wasn't going to be blackmailed into taking all the blame for it. There were plenty of hands that had found their way into that cookie pot, plenty of people that should see a bill coming to them in their future. Nabiki just knew it was going to be easier to blackmail him into paying off the debt than getting everyone else to chip in for that catastrophe.
Hell, she might be giving everyone separate bills without letting him know, to make some extra cash.
Still, even if he wasn't going to accept blame, he had decided to leave the Tendo Dojo to look for a job and make some money. Where threats had failed, a sense of duty had persevered. The person who had managed to win him over hadn't even realized that she had done it.
Earlier in the night, while he lay on the roof staring at the stars and contemplating his life, he had seen Kasumi head towards the dojo when she thought that everyone else was asleep. His curiosity had been piqued by the Tendo housemaker being up this late, and he decided to watch her from his rooftop vantage point. He had felt a bit guilty for doing it, but not enough to turn away as she entered the remains of the dojo. It told the sorry state of the building that there were enough holes in it to keep track of her as she made her way through it. He saw her head to her mother's shrine near the back, get down on her knees and break down crying. He had stared for a while, too shocked to turn away from the scene before him.
So he watched. Watched as she poured out everything that she had felt over the course of the past few days to the shrine of her dead mother. Watched as she cried about the loss of the dojo, the fighting in the family, and the failure of anyone to do anything to fix it. For ten minutes she bore her heart to the spirit of her late mother, then he watched as she fixed her appearance, wiped the tears from her eyes, and walked back into the house with a smile he could not even tell was forced.
His code of ethics would not allow him to sit idly by when someone as kind as Kasumi bore the brunt of the problems going on in the household. He was going to give back to her, someone who had given so much for everyone else. The only problem was that he could not stay in Nerima and find work. Waitressing at the Nekohaten or Ukyos would unleash its own round of problems; he wasn't willing to interact with either of them until things had cooled down a bit. Hell, he wasn't even willing to talk with either Shampoo or Ukyo for the role they played in the failed wedding. No, it was going to take a long time and a long discussion about what they had done before he was going to forgive them.
However with the loss of his two primary jobs he was left with a conundrum. You could not find a business in Nerima that would be willing to hire him due to the potential risk that he posed to their store. Not that he could blame them. He was a bomb just waiting to go off at any place he was at long enough. It would spell destruction for any business, or group of businesses that had him in the area if someone decided they had to fight him right then and there. He couldn't even commute to somewhere else; someone would inevitably follow him to where he worked and then bring all the craziness of Nerima with them. He was stuck with two choices; either work off the debt through Nabiki or leave Nerima.
So the choice had been obvious; he needed to leave Nerima.
Ranma took one last look around the room as he secured the clasps on the top of his pack. Right now he wasn't sure whether it was the room that felt empty or if it was him. He was glad that his mother had insisted on his father and her sharing a room while Ranma slept alone or this escape would have been a lot more difficult. Despite his father's slothful nature, Genma was surprisingly attentive and was either a lighter sleeper than he let on or slept with one eye open. He'd been ambushed more times by his father, while the man was asleep, than he could count. 'Well nothing stopping me now.' Ranma thought to himself.
Even after saying that, it still took a few minutes. He had managed to get one foot out the open window, and was preparing to shift into the Umisenken when he heard the voice behind him.
"Oh my!"
He froze and his head twisted slowly swirled around to face the intruder. When he realized it was Kasumi that was standing in the doorway he let loose a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. If anyone else in the house had been standing there this conversations would have gone a lot uglier. "Hey Kasumi, what's up?"
She closed the door quietly behind her as she stepped into the room. "Ranma-kun, what are you doing?"
"W-well you see I was just…it was…" Ranma deflated a bit, both metaphorically and physically, and decided lying wasn't an option, not with how bad he was at it and especially not to Kasumi. "I'm gonna be leaving for a little while." He admitted while playing with his pigtail.
"Ranma-kun," she said, placing her hand on his shoulder and ignoring the flinch that came with it. She let the silence hang as she shifted through a few faces, before settling on motherly "If you need to talk to someone about your fights with Akane, I'm always here."
"Nah, it ain't that Kasumi," Ranma said, shaking his head, "I ain't leaving cause of Akane, Nabs, pops or old man Tendo. I'm gonna try and get some money to fix the dojo up again."
Kasumi looked shocked for a moment before concern came back to her face. "You don't need to do that, Nabiki will be able to come up with the money."
"That ain't gonna work this time. Nabiki ain't got the money for this one and if she does she's gonna be getting it out of me. And I ain't gonna be able to pay if I'm staying here. I…I saw you the other night and it ain't really my place to say, but I know how much the dojo means to you. I ain't gonna let you be the one suffering 'cause of what happened. I'm gonna make sure it gets put back together."
"Ranma-"
"Nah Kasumi," Ranma interrupted, "You can't talk me outta doing this. I ain't gonna let you be the one who's worrying about all this. I'm gonna get it fixed up and I'll be back quicker than you'd believe." He finished with his characteristic smirk.
There was another long bout of silence as Kasumi mulled over what he said, while Ranma worried about how he would respond. In a way Kasumi may have been the worse one to find him; if she actually pushed back it would be next to impossible to say no. You just couldn't shut down Kasumi, especially since she was the one he was doing this for. "You should remember to leave a note for everyone so they don't worry. I know your mother and your…friends will be worried about you."
The courageous, self-righteous speech he had been preparing to give fell apart and again his hand found its way to the base of his pigtail. "Oh right…I kinda forgot about that."
Still, he was relieved that he had been given what amounted to a free pass by Kasumi. It might have been worse if she had thanked him; he was never good at emotional stuff. He pulled a piece of paper and pen seemingly out of nowhere and began to scribble down a quick note to the family, and inevitably everyone else in Nerima willing to fork over the cash. He wrote down the usual spiel he gave when he left; I'm heading out on a training trip, I can't take anyone along, don't look for me, as well as a quick bit at the end about paying off the debt for the dojo as soon as he found a job. Like most everything he wrote it was barely legible and not very in depth, but it was fine for explaining what everyone needed to know. He handed it off to Kasumi and then paused for a second before pulling out another sheet of paper and began writing again.
"Did you forget something?" Kasumi asked as she stuffed the letter she had been given into a pocket of her housedress.
"Nah, just figured I'd need to explain things to mom in a way she'll get. Gonna make things easier in the long run. Don't want her worrying about me."
Again, the letter was finished in a few minutes and handed off to Kasumi. Ranma threw his pack over his shoulder again and headed back towards the window. "Wait!" Kasumi called out quickly.
Ranma turned around and before he could speak Kasumi had grabbed him in a hug and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "Be sure to write Ranma-kun." She whispered in his ear before releasing him.
"Y-yea. I'll be sure to write as much as I can Kasumi. Don't worry about it." He answered. Fiddling with his pigtail again as his face turned bright red.
With a quick goodbye he slid his body through the window and with a swirl of a handkerchief that appeared in his hand, he was gone, roof hopping unseen across the city. Kasumi stared at the spot where a surrogate sibling had disappeared into the night. "Oh Ranma-kun…" She muttered to herself, conflicted about what she had done, and not done. You could always fine him running off on someone else's behalf, but for her? 'There's no stopping Ranma-kun when he puts his mind to it.' She told herself, but even unspoken, the words rang hollow to her ears. She was left alone with regrets. "Good luck Ranma-kun." She whispered to the empty room, feeling powerless to do much else.
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Ranma Saotome sat on a park bench in a small town south of Osaka in her female form, no matter how much she wished she could stay male. She had become much more comfortable with "Ranko" than when she had first gotten cursed, however circumstances had made it all but impossible to admit it. Accusations of perversion, unmanliness, as well as harassment by those around her had made it easier to treat this form as an abomination.
Perhaps to others it truly was. And her by association.
This however did not invalidate how useful it had been in the past few years, something Ranma had been forced to admit to herself. Ranko had her advantages as well as disadvantages. Oh sure, switching genders at inappropriate times had been equal parts embarrassing and harmful, but that was its own separate issue. In the end, it was something she could deal with. Hell, even started to embrace. Maybe she hadn't completely come to terms with being half female, but she was starting to work things out on her own.
So it wasn't the female aspect of her curse that was unwanted at the moment, it was how much she stood out. Bright red hair was not an easy thing to hide, especially in Japan, and being drop dead gorgeous didn't really help. Drop dead, because if you tried to hit on her that's what one punch would do to you. She would prefer to be male, make herself a little more innocuous on the road.
A slight rainstorm had overridden that decision, and so she was currently a woman.
At the moment though, she was not too concerned about her red hair attracting attention; she was too busy pondering on what exactly she was going to do. The escape had been easy, almost too easy really. Maybe no one had been expecting the sudden departure, maybe she had been lucky in eluding those back in Nerima, or maybe she was just that damn good at hiding herself. In all honesty it made her paranoid, but at the moment she couldn't let it dominate her mind. She was at least safe at the moment from the madness that was Nerima. For now, she needed to start on the second part of her plan.
She knew that it was only a matter of time until everyone in Nerima was out looking for her, no doubt Nabiki already had her connections scouring Japan and China for a red haired girl and a black haired boy with a pigtail. Pictures of both her forms would probably be on milk cartons soon enough, so the safest bet had been heading out to a place where no one would think of looking. She vaguely remembered this town from her time as a young boy, excited about learning martial arts. She had traveled to a lot of places and seen a lot of things while on the road, but this one place had stuck out in her head. It had been one of the more peaceful stops on a ten year long, grueling training trip. This was the first place she had completely mastered a school of martial arts. No horrible training techniques, no tortuous time with his father. Just straight martial arts practice underneath a competent teacher. Nothing about the experience or school itself had been extraordinary, but the nostalgia made her happy to be back in the area. Even better, and partly the reason she had chosen to come here, the town was so far removed from the hustle and bustle of modern life that by the time Nabiki's influence could have spread to here, she might already have made enough to fix the dojo.
The first part of the plan had worked well; she had escaped and was hidden. Now it was time to commence part b; getting cash.
She never had a problem getting by while on the road. Getting together enough to survive on was easy, even now, while laying low. Hell, you didn't even need money most of the time; she was doing just fine with only five thousand yen to her name. But Ranma needed to do more than just get by, she was attempting to get together enough to pay for repairs. Getting by was not going to do it, she needed to get a job.
This is why she was sitting on a bench doing nothing. The very thing that was her greatest protector against being found was also her biggest obstacle. Small towns were not known for the variety of jobs that they had available. She had gone to every store in town, and the only opportunities she had been able to find were odd jobs, and those would not garner income quickly enough. In summary, the town was poorer than dirt and she wasn't going to be able to find a good job unless she got lucky. Really lucky. "Hell, I won't be able to find a job in a place like this unless it came up and hit me in the face." Ranma complained to herself.
Coincidentally, a strong gust of wind at that very moment blew through the park, shaking trees and ruffling clothes. A seemingly innocuous newspaper that was lying on the ground was caught up in this powerful blast of air and got flung off the ground, traveling along in the wind. It managed to make it about ten feet before all the momentum it had gathered was stopped by a collision.
With the face of a pigtailed marital artist.
Ranma groaned to herself and pulled the paper from her face. "Me and my big mouth." She muttered to herself as she opened it up. "Might as well see if they got any jobs in this thing."
Well what do you know! Her eyes scanned the page and quickly knocked off several different jobs that either paid far too little or were far too embarrassing (what kind of small town would need a model for their swimsuit covers), before a colorful ad at the bottom caught her eye.
Looking for help at small shrine. Provided room and board. Salary negotiable. Must be familiar with martial arts, spirits, supernatural creatures, curses, and magical artifacts. Should be able to adapt to any situation. If interested contact provided number.
Ranma gave a dead-eyed stare at the ad for over a minute before finally shaking herself out of it. The newspaper was quickly crumpled up and thrown with a light toss over her shoulder. She got up from the bench and started walking away, muttering curses to herself.
Ranma was not stupid. Oh sure, she wasn't the most intelligent person, she was very blinkered in what she pushed herself to be good at, she did not take academics very seriously, and she could be led around easily with just the mention of honor, but she was not stupid. She had been involved in enough attempts on her life and subtle attempts to manipulate her to recognize an obvious trap.
And if this ad hadn't been written specifically for her, she'd go out with Kuno.
No, she wasn't stupid enough to fall for something like this, no matter how dire the straights were at the moment. She was going to figure out some way to make money on her own. With a determined stride she headed for the gate to the park, and made it about five feet before the wind picked up and the crumpled up newspaper made itself apparent again, smacking into the back of her head and landing at her feet.
She gave it a glare which by all rights could have set it on fire before picking it up again and tossing it fifty meters in the opposite direction. She dusted off her hands and headed off towards the edge of the park. She made it two steps this time before the thing impacted the side of her head and swirled around to land in front of her feet again.
A growl rolled out from the back of her throat as she glared down at the offending piece of paper. Her form blurred at the speed she reached down to pick it up. The newspaper found itself in a vice grip, crushed as densely as she could make it, and with a yell, Ranma threw it as hard as she possibly could. She watched with an inward glee as the crumpled up paper traveled into the skyline before quickly vanishing out of sight. Ranma nodded confidently to herself. This time she managed to make it ten steps before a new newspaper impacted into her face, already open to the jobs section. Ranma grabbed it, pulling it down from her face slowly as a vein started to throb in her forehead. The paper in her hands burst into flames as miniature moko takabishi made themselves present in both palms.
Before it had finished burning, three new ones had already impacted into her from three different angles. "Fine!" Ranma called, fist raised to the heavens, "I'll call the stupid number! But I know you're up to something!"
She turned around to head towards a telephone booth she had seen on the other side of the park, before stopping as she realized she had not been alone during this whole interaction. An old couple, a group of kids, and a yakitori vendor were all staring her down, possibly due to her outburst or possibly due to the fact that her anger had gotten the best of her and her ki had forced itself into the visible spectrum. She slowly let the red aura around her fade away and scratched the back of her head. "Sorry about that." She called out and tried to make her way as discretely out of the park as she could.
She inwardly cursed at herself for getting so easily riled up, and promised that she would make sure whoever did this to her would pay for the humiliation. Behind her back several gaps opened in the middle of the air and an arm reached out of each one in turn, grabbing the papers before anyone could get a hold of them. If anyone had been looking as these newspapers vanished into the gaps, they might have been able to read the title "Bunbunmaru News" before it disappeared from view.
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After letting loose her anger on an unsuspecting tree (now firewood for some lucky family), Ranma decided that perhaps this situation was not as horrible as she had made it out to be. She had been on edge for the last few days, even before she had decided to make a run for it. Nerima was not the kind of place where you were able to let your guard down, especially not if your name was Ranma Saotome. That was begging for someone to take a shot at her or get her drugged up and into a tuxedo before she could say "I do". Sure, there was no doubt in her mind that this was some sort of trap, but that meant she was already prepared for whatever was about to happen. What were the chances that they'd be able to trick her into something when she was expecting it? Maybe she could even manage to trick them, get enough money out of this whole thing to pay for repairs to the dojo, sneak out without a problem, and be back in Nerima by next Monday.
Yea, right.
Still, with positive thoughts in her head, Ranma shoved some loose change into a telephone booth, dialed the number at the bottom of the ad and waited. She got to two rings before someone picked up. Ranma waited through fifteen seconds of an uncomfortable silence before she realized she would have to be the one to break it. "Hello?"
"Hi!" A childish voice exclaimed. Ranma might not have been able to see the person on the other end of the line, but whoever was talking could not be older than ten. Also there was something about the voice that sent shivers running down her spine. Something about it made her think of those furry monsters, but she pushed that thought out of her head. There must be some of those little devils in the background, already a strike against the person who ran this ad. A sudden insight: what if she had called the wrong number? After all, what kind of person would have their kid answer the phone for a job? An image of Hinako Ninomiya flashed through her mind. 'Hopefully it's nothing like that.' Ranma thought to herself. 'Dunno if I could deal with someone like Ms. Hinako being my boss.'
"Hey, there was an ad in the newspaper that said you were looking for somebody to help out at a shrine. I was hoping I could take the job."
"No, this is Ms. Yukari's place. You have to call Rei-"
She heard a voice in the background call out for someone named Chan, or something like that, and then a whine let loose from the speaker that had her nearly jump out of the phone booth. Fortunately she managed hold it together fairly well, all things considered, and only smashed herself face-first into the glass. 'What the heck are they making these things out of?' There was some commotion on the other end of the line, as well as some words spoken that she couldn't quite make out, and then a new voice answered the phone. "Hello, who is this?"
This new voice coming out of the speaker was much more promising. Despite the interactions with her English teacher going much more smoothly in recent months, she would prefer someone who could keep enough focus to answer her questions. "Hey, I saw an ad in the paper for a job at a shrine. I was wondering if it was still open."
"Oh of course. We have been expecting your call. If you would excuse me a moment, I will go get my…superior." Before she could respond to that, Ranma heard the phone get put down and the sound of someone running off.
This time there was a much longer wait before she heard any movement on the other end of the phone. By the time a new voice greeted her, Ranma had begun to get annoyed at how difficult it was to willingly walk into this trap. When she finally heard someone new pick up the phone she answered a bit snappier than she had originally planned to. "So is this gonna be the person in charge of this job or should I just hang up?"
She was a very patient person when attempting to learn a new technique, but lost all semblance of it while interacting with others.
She was greeted with a throaty laugh and a sultry voice that put her on edge. A warning siren labeled fiancée began blasting through her head. "Yes, I am the one currently seeking a new assistant at a shrine. I assume you meet all the qualifications listed in the ad?"
Focusing on getting through this as painlessly as possible she responded, "More than you could believe lady."
"Well aren't you fortunate then? We are incredibly short staffed at the moment, and could use all the help we can get. Of course, you will need to start right away."
"Wait, that's it? You're hired? Just like that?" Ranma asked.
"Just like that. Were you expecting trumpets to inaugurate your employment? It is not so difficult to get a job, even in this harsh economy. As long as you are sure that you can cut it."
"I can take on anything that you can dish out," Ranma retorted, rising to the challenge laid out, "but…nah, never mind. Sounds good. Shouldn't be a problem to start right now. But listen, I was wondering if I could get some of the pay up front. I kinda owe someone a lot of money. I'm probably gonna need like four mill-"
She was interrupted before she could continue. "Oh don't worry. Money is not going to be an issue. Any debt you have incurred I would be willing to pay off. Under the right circumstances of course."
Ranma gulped audibly at that statement. Ominous. Very ominous. "Listen I ain't gonna run out on you." Sounds more like something pops would do, she thought to herself. "If you could pay for everything I'd do whatever you want." It took a few moments before Ranma realized what she had said, the face she made was not pleasant.
'This lady better not be another Nabs or I'm screwed.'
"I believe we can hash out the details right now. If you would be willing to work at the shrine for several months, I think I could pay you…six million over the course of your time here."
Ranma's eyes almost bugged out of her head. "Six million yen!"
"Oh you're right, that's far too cheap for the benefits you would be giving to our little shrine. Would seven million be enough?"
Ranma could hear the teasing tone through the phone but still couldn't keep herself from squeaking out, "Yes! That's fine!"
"I'm glad to hear it. I'll be sure to take out the appropriate amount to pay for repairs to the dojo."
The worry she had felt before she made the call came flooding back. "How did you know-"
"I will however need your word that you will follow through with all the conditions of this contract."
That specific phrasing ground any thoughts going through her head to a halt. "You don't need me to sign nothing? Just my word?"
"Yes, I am sure that for you, it will be enough."
A thousand thoughts ran through her head. The biggest of them was how much she would be beholden to this woman if she agreed. Several months didn't sound that long but they could always find a way to drag themselves out, especially for someone like herself. You could get yourself into a lot of trouble over the course of a few days, let alone weeks. This woman had obviously done her homework; if this was a trap than it was aiming for something more than just taking her out or getting her in a tuxedo. This woman was trying to tie her down. If she gave her word to work for her, she wouldn't be able to back out. There were so many things that she could be forced to do. But could she manage to find another offer like this? Was it worth it to sell away herself just to fix a dojo?
An image of Kasumi crying found its way back into her head.
"I'm not gonna be doing anything illegal or hurting nobody."
"Of course not."
Ranma took a deep inhale and exhale. 'Ain't like I got anything waiting for me back home.' She thought to herself. "You have my word as a martial artist that I will not back out on our deal."
"Perfect. I'm so happy to have you joining our little group Ranma. I can't wait to meet you. Bye bye."
Before she could say anything else she heard the phone click and the line went dead. "Huh, I never gave her my name." Ranma said absentmindedly to herself as she hung up the phone. "Knew it was a trap. Still…can't be any worse than working for Nabs."
She shouldered the pack she had left leaning on the side of the phone booth. If her employer wanted her to start today, she was going to get this meeting over with as quickly as possible. Fixing the dojo was her top priority. Sure, she would have liked to get the money as quickly as possible, but a few months wasn't bad for several thousand yen. Start now, and she probably could pull it off before anyone found her. Some shrine that had to take ads out to find workers couldn't be doing too well. However, one more problem presented itself before she could get started.
"Where the hell am I supposed to meet her? She never gave me an address." A quick glance down at the ad yielded no positive results. "Huh, guess I'm gonna have to call back."
She took one step back towards the phone booth before letting out a scream as the ground she was walking on opened up and she fell feet first into a void filled with eyes. Honestly, she had expected something like this. Perhaps not quite so blatant, but things had been going far too smoothly for how obvious a trap this whole thing was. Also Ranma reassured herself that she did not just scream, she was shouting out a war cry and it was in no way girly.
After she disappeared from sight, the hole closed up without a mark, as if it had never been there. Ranma blindly fell through a void of eyes, without direction or anything to tell how fast she was falling or where exactly she was going. And then as soon as it had started, it stopped. She was no longer in a swirling tunnel of a thousand peering eyes, instead she had landed butt first on a grassy hill, overlooking a lake. Ranma took a few seconds to let her mind put itself back together before dusting herself off, jumping to her feet, and taking a look around.
The banks of a large lake stretched out before her. It was crystal clear and seemed to go on for a few kilometers, with a mist coming off of it, making it difficult to see clearly to the other side. As far as she could see, the lake was surrounded by a thick forest except for one area where the forest had been cut back to make room for…a house? No, far bigger than a house, a mansion! Either way, the view was completely stunning. Involuntarily she found herself whistling as she took in everything in front of her.
"It is beautiful, isn't it?"
That voice was fresh in her mind. Ranma had swung around into a defensive stance before the woman had finished talking. Her little trip may have made her a bit cautious about where she had been sent. "O-h-h-h, now don't be quite so jumpy Ranma-chan," Yukari said with a smile and a wink, "You shouldn't threaten your boss like that."
Ranma relaxed at those words. Not a lot, but she still relaxed a bit. At least now she was face to face with the woman she had metaphorically sold her soul to. At least she hoped metaphorically, could never tell with some of the people that seemed to pop up around her. It was almost certain, at the very least, she would need to fight this woman to gain her freedom back at some point. She assessed the woman's threat level, and was taken aback at the power that flowed naturally out of this woman. Her eyes narrowed a bit, whatever power this woman had, it was not human. She had been around enough oni and spirits to notice the difference. This definitely wasn't just some woman, and she set off her danger senses more than either of the two ancient martial artists back in Nerima. As nonchalant as she could, she placed her hands behind her head and started walking towards her new boss. "Oh hey, nice to meetcha…"
"Yukari. Yukari Yakumo." She said, slowly turning the parasol that lay over her shoulder as she held out her hand. "And it is a pleasure to finally meet you Ranma-chan."
"Yea, nice to meetcha. Seems like a nice place you're in charge of." Ranma said with a quick handshake, her eyes never leaving the being in front of her. "So you gonna explain what just happened?"
"Welcome to Gensokyo," Yukari said with an overdramatic sweep of her arms, "The land of fantasy and illusion. I am the youkai of boundaries; opening a gap between this world and yours was child's play for one like me. As I said, I believed it would be best to have you start right away"
The mention of being in a completely different land was filed away for later. Ranma gave a few stomps to the ground, before plucking a few pieces of grass out of the ground and inspecting them. "Huh, feels pretty real to me."
Yukari gave Ranma a look of utter disdain at that comment; with just a glance Ranma was told that she was a complete fool for even thinking that sentence, let alone uttering it aloud. "Gensokyo is not a land which does not exist. It is a world separated from the one you know by the great Hakurei barrier. A realm created for Youkai, oni, gods, and spirts; beings such as myself and others that needed to escape the modern world which has lost its belief in us. A safe haven to make sure that we are not forgotten forever."
'Huh, made a deal with a Youkai. Pretty dangerous one if she's supposed to be in charge of this place. Still…can't be much worse than working for Nabs.' Ranma thought to herself, as she processed the information. "So…why'd you come looking for me for the job?" She asked.
"Just as I said in the ad, the Hakurei shrine needs a priest, or perhaps priestess, to help alleviate some of the responsibilities that the current miko faces." She said, ignoring the "I'm a guy" muttered out after the implication. "As you can imagine, many of the beings living in Gensokyo live on conflict. We needed someone capable of handling anyone they would come across, and I thought that another human would have been a better choice than a youkai. This world has had some difficulty with the interactions between youkai and humans as of late. I have been keeping tabs on you for quite some time, and I do not believe I could find a more capable person to assist Reimu. You will fit in with the residents of Gensokyo better than I think you would believe. Maybe find some kinship among some of them."
"So basically you were just looking for someone to deal with the stuff this miko doesn't wanna do, able to take care of the monsters and wouldn't get beat down by them?"
"Exactly!" She said, clapping along, "I'm glad to see that you can think for yourself."
Ranma blushed a bit at the taunt and decided to cut this conversation off as quickly as possible before he got made a fool. "Well then where is this Hakurei shrine? I'd like to meet my coworker."
"Hmmmm," Yukari hummed to herself, "More boss than coworker I would imagine…now I could tell you where to find the shrine, but where would the fun in that be? Why don't you take a look around for yourself? Get a lay of the land. You'll be able to introduce yourself better that way, see the sights, and I have a feeling you'll be meeting some very important members of Gensokyo." She said with a grin that seemed far too predatory. "Just be sure to introduce yourself as the new priest of the Hakurei shrine. It will make things much easier when you meet others."
"So you're not gonna give me any info on what I'm supposed to be doing for my job?"
"No." Yukari said. Then, with a smile and a wink, she stepped back into a gap and was gone.
Ranma spent a moment staring at the space where her new boss used to be, and let out a long sigh. "Should have known that something like this was gonna happen. Still ain't tryin' to kill or marry me yet, so not as bad as it could be." She took a long look at the scenery surrounding her, took in a deep breath of the fresh spring air and let it out slowly. A small bit of ki began to bleed into the visible spectrum. She felt the power flow through her body as she got her second wind. The miserable couple of months seemed to wash away in an instant.
"No fiancées, no rivals, no obligations. Cut off completely from all the problems back home. No way Nabs is gonna be finding me in another dimension. Just wandering around with a bunch of super powered monsters." Ranma smiled to herself and began to meander down the hill. "I think I'm gonna like this place. Guess we'll find out who's living in the house."
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Several days ago
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"HE DID WHAT!"
The triple scream of Akane, Genma, and Soun echoed throughout the neighborhood, scattering any nearby residents of the district, who knew better than to stick around when high powered martial artists were shocked, angered, or interested in something. The Saotome family sans one, Nabiki, Akane, and Happosai were all situated at the dinner table staring at Kasumi, with the three previously mentioned on their feet at the announcement that had been given.
"Oh my, yes. He told me he was leaving last night and left a letter for everyone." Kasumi said with her usual "my head is in the clouds" expression. A letter came out of her pocket and was handed to Nabiki, smart enough to rush for it before any of the three stooges decided to get their grubby hands on it. Any news on Ranma was money just waiting to be made. She began reading out loud to avoid any attempts to take the letter before she was through. Still, everyone at the table was behind her immediately, reading along over her shoulder.
Hey,
Heading out on a training trip. Don't look for me. Gonna make some money to fix the dojo. Can't do that here. Don't wanna have Nabs dressing me up and selling pictures or nothing. Sorry I can't bring anyone along or I ain't gonna get nothing done. I figure after the wedding we all need to cool off anyway. I'll be back soon.
Ranma
As she finished the letter, everyone's reactions were exactly what one would expect. Akane had worked herself into a frenzy about how Ranma had left her for presumably one of his fiancées, and lacking that some random floozy. The fathers began to rant to each other about how Genma's "disgraceful son" had run away, the schools would never be joined, and they needed to go plan a new wedding right away. Nodoka stood off to the side unsure about whether to declare how manly her son was for taking care of this responsibility, or unmanly for leaving his fiancées behind.
The only one who stuck out as odd was Happosai. At the moment, the man just sat back smoking his pipe and watching the events around him. He was enjoying the way things were beginning to progress. As soon as Ranma had mastered the more advanced techniques of anything goes he would be able to hand off the title of grandmaster and begin his long awaited retirement. Visions of tropical beaches and beautiful women flashed through his head. Happosai spaced out of reality imagining his time with beautiful women in the near future.
Nabiki may have noticed the odd behavior coming from Happosai had she not been too busy hurrying into the other room to make some calls. If Ranma thought he was going to be getting away from her that easily he was dead wrong. While she was at it, she might as well let the other fiancées know, for a price. A working girl needs to eat after all.
"Oh, Miss. Saotome, I almost forgot. He wrote a letter for you specifically." Kasumi said, handing the red-headed woman her letter, stopping everyone in their tracks.
Nodoka stopped her ponderings on the manliness of her son and grabbed the letter. Hearing another letter from Ranma existed, everyone had gone rushing towards Nodoka. They were cut off (almost quite literally) when she grabbed a knife lying on the table and in a dramatic wave cut the letter open. Nodoka's ability with a blade was legendary, and not for her skill; everyone had jumped back as quickly as they could when they saw anything with an edge enter her hand. This gave her enough time to scan the letter without anyone else getting the chance to see it. Suddenly she grabbed the letter to her chest and began to dance around, waving fans in the air and proclaiming how manly her son was.
Everyone who had witnessed this slowly looked at each other, the silent question easily readable in the air. Nabiki spoke it anyway.
"What the hell did he write to her?"
--------
In the village where people were not, the setting sun had cast a room into shadows. The patio doors had been opened wide, brightening the room with the remnants of the evening light. Like a picture framed by the doorway, a mountain range shaded in the colors of autumn blocked a red sun, shining down onto Gensokyo valley. All of which was lost on the room's sole occupant, her attention instead focused on a letter lying on the low table in front of her. Her hand flowed through deliberate movements as she carefully composed her final thoughts. From a connecting hall, a hand reached out and gave three soft knocks on the interior wall. After no immediate reaction was given by the sitting figure, a voice softly called out, "Yukari-Sama?"
A blonde head peeked through the door into the living room. Short blonde hair framed a pale, triangular face. She stepped slightly into the room, her long housedress swaying with the motion. Her hands slipped into their opposing sleeve and she stood waiting to be addressed, as a proper familiar should. In the dim light you could almost mistake her for a mother looking over her child, except for two large discrepancies. Nine large, furry tails came out from underneath her housedress, curling themselves around her back, and two pointed fox ears had been covered by a white hat, which sat on her head.
Yukari took only a moment away from her writing to give a nod of greeting to her Shikigami. Blonde hair flowed down to her mid-back covering a fraction of her large dark-purple dress. A light-pink puffy hat was placed on her head, matching the parasol that leaned against the table next to her. While her Shikigami could be mistaken for a young adult, Yukari was unarguably a woman deep into her adulthood. Not a wrinkle could be found on her face, but one could tell at a simple glance her maturity. Unfortunately this maturity did not make itself evident in her actions; mischief had set itself into her eyes, into her smile, an idle whimsy had suffused itself throughout her very being.
"Are you finished Ran?" She asked, not taking her eyes off of the paper as she set the brush down beside it.
"Yes Yukari-sama, I've placed the ad in the paper as you asked." She said, entering the room fully, to stand behind her mistress.
Yukari hummed in acknowledgement and began to blow on the ink to help it dry. A small gap opened up in the air in front of her, which she pulled a ribbon out of. The letter was quickly rolled up and the ribbon used to tie it off. "Now, we wait for him to take the bait."
"Yukari-Sama, if I may ask…why? Why go to such lengths to bring him here? Even if he is peculiarly strong for a human, he is not a youkai, he will not belong."
Yukari pushed herself back from the table and got on her feet. "It has been several years now since he first attracted my attention Ran, and I have been tempted to invite him to Gensokyo for just as long; far before his little incident with Saffron-chan. With events progressing the way that they have, I've been given a unique position to take advantage of. It would be remiss of me not to invite him for a brief visit, would it not? I may not get a chance like this again, and I would hate to have someone so promising fall into a tedious life of training children, when he could achieve so much more. After all, there are very few people, even Youkai, who have been quite as well traveled, won against such large odds, or made quite as many enemies and lovers." She said the last word with a wink.
"Yukari-sama, please don't dodge the question." Ran said with a shake of her head. "I understand your interest in…entertaining humans but that does not justify going to such lengths to bring him to Gensokyo. He is strong for a human but he would not be able to hold up against any of the stronger youkai. His method of fighting is completely unsuited for a danmaku battle and fighting. If he continued to fight as he does now he would bring all manner of youkai down on his head. All he would bring to Gensokyo is chaos."
Yukari gave her familiar a smile that denizens all over Gensokyo had learned to hate. "Why Ran, you've answered your own question! Aside from that, fresh blood may do us some good. Gensokyo needs men after all." She finished with a wink.
Ran hung her head and sighed. 'Of course that is why you did it Yukari-sama. I had hoped, in vain, that I would get a more serious answer.' Ran thought to herself
Yukari tactfully ignored the dour expression her familiar gained after hearing her answer. "I have one more task for you Ran. I need you to deliver this letter to our little red and white miko. It should explain everything that she will need to know in the coming week."
"Of course Yukari-sama."
"Perfect," Yukari finished, stretching her arms above her head with a yawn and becoming obscured by shadows as she headed deeper into the house. Now I'm going to be taking a long nap Ran. Wake me when he calls."
"As you wish Yukari-sama."
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Chapter 1
Workin' for a Livin'
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The decision to leave had come suddenly. Or maybe not. Maybe it had been at the back of his mind the entire time, waiting for the perfect moment to present itself. Ranma Saotome, aquatranssexual heir to the Saotome school of Anything Goes Martial Arts, was loading his backpack as quickly and as quietly as he could. He was taking what's his (which admittedly was not a lot), and getting the hell out of dodge before anyone noticed he was missing.
His old traveling pack was almost always prepared with the essentials in case he needed a quick escape into the wilderness for a "training trip". This time, however, he was taking a bit more than the basics. While his room was fairly Spartan there were still plenty of knick knacks, clothes, and odds and ends from his many adventures and lengthy time in Nerima littering the place. Even a little bit of money and valuables he'd managed to hide from both Nabiki and his father. All of these possessions were stuffed away as quickly as he could manage without giving away his current activity. This time the pigtailed martial artist was not planning on a quick little trip out to the country to hide out for a few days. He was fairly certain that when he left, he was not going to be seeing Nerima for a long time; at least as long as he could help it.
Maybe he didn't need to bring absolutely everything he had gotten over the years, but he thought it better to have his things with him than have his father or Nabiki pawn it off for some extra cash. He didn't want to lose any mementos of his adventures over the years due to someone else's greed. There was also the principle of the thing to consider. If he ended up leaving things in his room, it would still feel like it was his room. Unless he was running away with everything he owned strapped over his back, it was almost like a promise to himself that he would return. It was a bit like his time on the road as a kid really, but less of a chance of jail time and more of bodily harm. Hidden weapons may have been a good alternative, but there was nothing like a solid traveling pack. It was the principle of the thing really.
The Tendo Dojo had been his home for the last two years, for better and for worse. He had experienced a lot of the modern world since then, progressed further in the art by leaps and bounds with each new challenger that faced him, found a few girls that he had felt affection towards, and been manipulated into doing a lot of things he regretted. Despite the chaos that seemed to wrap around him like a cloak, he had managed to keep everything fairly calm in the end; solved every problem that arose, defeated every rival and beat down every supernatural being that had come to cause a ruckus. It had kept things interesting at the very least and a status quo had erected itself in the chaos. Hell, through it all he had even managed to enjoy some of the madness.
That disaster of a wedding had changed everything.
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Ranma had always held the belief that he would be able to take control of his situation. That at some point he would be able to find the key to fixing everything without hurting anyone's feelings, ruining any honor or causing lasting harm to anyone. Sure, to the outside observer that idea would seem absurd, but Ranma was not looking in from the outside, he was caught right in the middle of this chaos nexus. Every new problem was just another fight to win, every new fiancée was someone who would realize at some point he did not want to be with them, and with the regularity that they came and left his life, it was difficult to realize how quickly his problems had begun to stack up. The wedding was just everything coming together in one star-studded event.
Every single little lie, every reassurance he had told himself about the way that things were going, had been proven wrong that day. It would have been easy to place the blame on Nabiki (not that she would ever accept it) for the prominent role she played in the destruction that had taken place but in the end it wasn't really her fault. No, she was just a catalyst, someone that had set that bomb off a bit quicker than it normally would have. If she hadn't let everyone know about the wedding, somehow, someway, they would have figured it out and arrived on their own. The rivals and fiancées would have come charging in to disrupt the ceremony; the vows would have been interrupted with or without the middle Tendo.
His life had become a self-perpetuating cycle of fights, with no clear way to end it. If he wanted to stop the rivals from coming after him, he would need to cancel the engagements to the women they loved. He couldn't break off any of the engagements without ruining his own honor or someone else's. Even then, there would still be people crawling out of the woodwork to take a shot at him for being the best or just to have him fix one of their problems. The only real way he could end the chaos was by doing the one thing he could never do; tarnishing someone's honor, most likely his own.
Well, except for the Kunos. The only way he was going to get rid of them was in a police cell, a morgue or a psychiatric ward.
And the amazons too. No way were they going to be leaving his life unless he was either married to Shampoo or Jusenkyo was wiped off the map.
You know what, no one was going to be leaving him alone. Even if he somehow managed to break off every engagement, hide away from every person, demon, and spirit that has a grudge against him, there would still be people harassing him every moment of his life. He was too tangled up in everyone else's expectations of what he should do and be; no one was going to accept him leaving just through talking. Hell, beating everyone down probably wouldn't help either; it had never stopped anyone from coming back before.
And Akane, at the very middle of everything, moments after their wedding had fallen apart, had reacted as she always had. It had been admittedly in the middle of a very strenuous situation, but he had finally told her that he loved her. He had rescued her more times than he could remember. He had even killed for her.
The overgrown chicken had managed to come back from it, but still, it was the principle of the thing.
When he had seen Akane smiling in her wedding dress, all the problems and arguments that had built up over the years just faded away. Her smile had always been his favorite thing about her, and seeing it at the altar had cemented the moment together. It was what he had always imagined his wedding would be like, well maybe not the part about getting knocked out, but after he woke up it had all seemed pretty much perfect. But as soon as everyone showed up, as soon as the moment was broken, he was just "the pervert" again, only to be treated with anger, disdain, and the end of a blunt object. The only times they had spoken to each other over the last week had led to or started off as arguments, which always ended with him booted through the roof, the fathers yelling at him to apologize, and a new bill from Nabiki for what her sister had done. Right now they needed time away from each other to cool off; something they wouldn't get with the fathers pushing them together and everyone else trying to pull them apart. Although, the real reason he wanted time away was something he wasn't willing to admit even to himself. Akane's dismissal of him, after everything that had happened over the last month, had hurt. Every silent glare or petty insult ripped into him like a barb. He needed time to himself if he was going to be able to forgive her.
The only good thing to come out of the failed wedding had been a save from Happosai of all people. The moment he saw that deformed pervert chugging the cure for his curse thinking it was sake, he had been willing to beat him to death. If he hadn't been caught up in the chaos of the weddings "after party", than he may well have tried. The fight he had put the aging grandmaster through the next day had been the most brutal encounter between the two martial artists, perhaps the most brutal fight he had been in aside from Saffron. If not for the level of control the two had, it would have undoubtedly ended in bloodshed. The fight had changed from the beat down he had intended, to the most technically challenging duel he had ever been in. He had pushed Happosai farther than he had ever seen him go, and likewise been forced well past his normal limits, burning through techniques and abilities before the two had finally just collapsed. The talk they had afterwards had been entirely unexpected, illuminating, and had been so helpful he still was questioning if it hadn't been an exhaustion induced hallucination.
It hadn't been an accident that Happosai had gulped down the water from the spring of drowned man before anyone could get their hands on it. As he had explained, the curses didn't override one another, they combined. Like Taro with the spring of drowned octopus, a new curse was added on to the existing one, which left worrying thoughts on what would have happened if he had managed to grab the cask before Happosai got to it. While the grandmaster of anything goes was many things, a pervert, drunkard, cruel, and generally an unlikeable person, he was by no means willing to let his chosen heir ruin the small bit of normalcy that the curse allowed him to have. Ranma did have a sneaking suspicion that the aging martial artist had been more concerned about keeping Ranko entirely female more for his own pleasure than Ranma's sanity, but he preferred not to dwell on that idea. After all, he had managed to walk away from the conversation not only with a feeling of satisfaction but also several fancy new scrolls bumping around in hidden weapons space.
A mastery scroll and several advanced techniques of anything goes had been burning a hole in his hammer-space pocket for a few weeks. Normally Ranma would have already dissected the techniques, pissed off enough people to get a few good fights in to figure out how they worked, and then integrate them into his normal martial arts style. Unfortunately, at the moment he did not have the luxury of going around picking fights and was would prefer no one finding out he was now an official master of anything goes.
Things had fallen into a balance (as balanced as anything could be in Nerima) and he was hesitant to break it. Getting his masters just felt like another step on the never-ending road in the life of a martial artist, but to others it could be a worrying sign of independence. The father's would be worried that he was not under their thumb, his fiancées would worry that he is getting more options for what to do with his life, and his rivals would worry he had that bit more power to lord over them. Everyone would believe that something big was about to happen and if anyone thought that some big change was going to occur, everyone would panic and try to be the first ones to get their hooks in him. At least that was how Happosai had phrased the whole thing to him. He hadn't really understood it but was more than happy to keep everything as peaceful as he possibly could.
Ranma shook his head to get his mind back on track. It was a little too late to worry about causing a splash now. He had already set himself down this path. Despite everything that had happened over the past few months, the fiancées, rivals, the fights, Saffron, the wedding, he hadn't chosen to leave because things had become too hard to deal with. Ranma Saotome didn't lose, and he wasn't willing to admit defeat with the situation in Nerima until things were truly and utterly hopeless. And even then he would probably stick around a little while longer to see things through.
An errant thought bubbled up in the back of his mind, noting how that perfectly described what he had been doing in Nerima for the last few months, but he banished it away as quickly as it came.
No, the wedding hadn't really been a breaking point for him. Just another shitty situation in a long series of them. It had been a painful experience, no doubt about that, but he would have just stuck around like he always had, let things continue as usual. The problem was, there were a few more complications than just tensions in Nerima skyrocketing.
The dojo had been wrecked, and that was putting it gently. Holes had been punched into every surface from people and things being tossed through them, parts of it had been burned from the bombs that were being thrown around, beams, walls and floors had been cracked from weapons and bodies slamming into them. After the abuse it had suffered, it was a miracle that the dojo was still standing at all. For parts of it, even calling it standing was a stretch.
The fathers had been absolutely furious, with old man Tendo surprisingly taking the lead role instead of following whatever his father did. They had yelled, screamed, and ordered him to either pay for the damages or fix the entire thing himself. Nabiki hadn't been as overt in her manipulations, though had been much more threatening. There had been references to making his life hell, insinuations that he was the one entirely at fault, allegations that his honor was in question unless he did something, and his debt to her had been dangled over his head. He was sure that she already had a series of photo shoots planned for the future, knowing he didn't have the cash. The money she had been making off of him through the betting pools and photos just barely covered the cost of repairs to the household (at least as far as you could trust Nabiki to tell the truth), ground zero of this disaster was an entirely different story. He did feel bad, he had been the focus of the entire fight and the only reason that everyone had shown up to trash the place, but at the end of it he refused to take the sole blame. He hadn't been the one to cause the damages to the dojo and wasn't going to be blackmailed into taking all the blame for it. There were plenty of hands that had found their way into that cookie pot, plenty of people that should see a bill coming to them in their future. Nabiki just knew it was going to be easier to blackmail him into paying off the debt than getting everyone else to chip in for that catastrophe.
Hell, she might be giving everyone separate bills without letting him know, to make some extra cash.
Still, even if he wasn't going to accept blame, he had decided to leave the Tendo Dojo to look for a job and make some money. Where threats had failed, a sense of duty had persevered. The person who had managed to win him over hadn't even realized that she had done it.
Earlier in the night, while he lay on the roof staring at the stars and contemplating his life, he had seen Kasumi head towards the dojo when she thought that everyone else was asleep. His curiosity had been piqued by the Tendo housemaker being up this late, and he decided to watch her from his rooftop vantage point. He had felt a bit guilty for doing it, but not enough to turn away as she entered the remains of the dojo. It told the sorry state of the building that there were enough holes in it to keep track of her as she made her way through it. He saw her head to her mother's shrine near the back, get down on her knees and break down crying. He had stared for a while, too shocked to turn away from the scene before him.
So he watched. Watched as she poured out everything that she had felt over the course of the past few days to the shrine of her dead mother. Watched as she cried about the loss of the dojo, the fighting in the family, and the failure of anyone to do anything to fix it. For ten minutes she bore her heart to the spirit of her late mother, then he watched as she fixed her appearance, wiped the tears from her eyes, and walked back into the house with a smile he could not even tell was forced.
His code of ethics would not allow him to sit idly by when someone as kind as Kasumi bore the brunt of the problems going on in the household. He was going to give back to her, someone who had given so much for everyone else. The only problem was that he could not stay in Nerima and find work. Waitressing at the Nekohaten or Ukyos would unleash its own round of problems; he wasn't willing to interact with either of them until things had cooled down a bit. Hell, he wasn't even willing to talk with either Shampoo or Ukyo for the role they played in the failed wedding. No, it was going to take a long time and a long discussion about what they had done before he was going to forgive them.
However with the loss of his two primary jobs he was left with a conundrum. You could not find a business in Nerima that would be willing to hire him due to the potential risk that he posed to their store. Not that he could blame them. He was a bomb just waiting to go off at any place he was at long enough. It would spell destruction for any business, or group of businesses that had him in the area if someone decided they had to fight him right then and there. He couldn't even commute to somewhere else; someone would inevitably follow him to where he worked and then bring all the craziness of Nerima with them. He was stuck with two choices; either work off the debt through Nabiki or leave Nerima.
So the choice had been obvious; he needed to leave Nerima.
Ranma took one last look around the room as he secured the clasps on the top of his pack. Right now he wasn't sure whether it was the room that felt empty or if it was him. He was glad that his mother had insisted on his father and her sharing a room while Ranma slept alone or this escape would have been a lot more difficult. Despite his father's slothful nature, Genma was surprisingly attentive and was either a lighter sleeper than he let on or slept with one eye open. He'd been ambushed more times by his father, while the man was asleep, than he could count. 'Well nothing stopping me now.' Ranma thought to himself.
Even after saying that, it still took a few minutes. He had managed to get one foot out the open window, and was preparing to shift into the Umisenken when he heard the voice behind him.
"Oh my!"
He froze and his head twisted slowly swirled around to face the intruder. When he realized it was Kasumi that was standing in the doorway he let loose a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. If anyone else in the house had been standing there this conversations would have gone a lot uglier. "Hey Kasumi, what's up?"
She closed the door quietly behind her as she stepped into the room. "Ranma-kun, what are you doing?"
"W-well you see I was just…it was…" Ranma deflated a bit, both metaphorically and physically, and decided lying wasn't an option, not with how bad he was at it and especially not to Kasumi. "I'm gonna be leaving for a little while." He admitted while playing with his pigtail.
"Ranma-kun," she said, placing her hand on his shoulder and ignoring the flinch that came with it. She let the silence hang as she shifted through a few faces, before settling on motherly "If you need to talk to someone about your fights with Akane, I'm always here."
"Nah, it ain't that Kasumi," Ranma said, shaking his head, "I ain't leaving cause of Akane, Nabs, pops or old man Tendo. I'm gonna try and get some money to fix the dojo up again."
Kasumi looked shocked for a moment before concern came back to her face. "You don't need to do that, Nabiki will be able to come up with the money."
"That ain't gonna work this time. Nabiki ain't got the money for this one and if she does she's gonna be getting it out of me. And I ain't gonna be able to pay if I'm staying here. I…I saw you the other night and it ain't really my place to say, but I know how much the dojo means to you. I ain't gonna let you be the one suffering 'cause of what happened. I'm gonna make sure it gets put back together."
"Ranma-"
"Nah Kasumi," Ranma interrupted, "You can't talk me outta doing this. I ain't gonna let you be the one who's worrying about all this. I'm gonna get it fixed up and I'll be back quicker than you'd believe." He finished with his characteristic smirk.
There was another long bout of silence as Kasumi mulled over what he said, while Ranma worried about how he would respond. In a way Kasumi may have been the worse one to find him; if she actually pushed back it would be next to impossible to say no. You just couldn't shut down Kasumi, especially since she was the one he was doing this for. "You should remember to leave a note for everyone so they don't worry. I know your mother and your…friends will be worried about you."
The courageous, self-righteous speech he had been preparing to give fell apart and again his hand found its way to the base of his pigtail. "Oh right…I kinda forgot about that."
Still, he was relieved that he had been given what amounted to a free pass by Kasumi. It might have been worse if she had thanked him; he was never good at emotional stuff. He pulled a piece of paper and pen seemingly out of nowhere and began to scribble down a quick note to the family, and inevitably everyone else in Nerima willing to fork over the cash. He wrote down the usual spiel he gave when he left; I'm heading out on a training trip, I can't take anyone along, don't look for me, as well as a quick bit at the end about paying off the debt for the dojo as soon as he found a job. Like most everything he wrote it was barely legible and not very in depth, but it was fine for explaining what everyone needed to know. He handed it off to Kasumi and then paused for a second before pulling out another sheet of paper and began writing again.
"Did you forget something?" Kasumi asked as she stuffed the letter she had been given into a pocket of her housedress.
"Nah, just figured I'd need to explain things to mom in a way she'll get. Gonna make things easier in the long run. Don't want her worrying about me."
Again, the letter was finished in a few minutes and handed off to Kasumi. Ranma threw his pack over his shoulder again and headed back towards the window. "Wait!" Kasumi called out quickly.
Ranma turned around and before he could speak Kasumi had grabbed him in a hug and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "Be sure to write Ranma-kun." She whispered in his ear before releasing him.
"Y-yea. I'll be sure to write as much as I can Kasumi. Don't worry about it." He answered. Fiddling with his pigtail again as his face turned bright red.
With a quick goodbye he slid his body through the window and with a swirl of a handkerchief that appeared in his hand, he was gone, roof hopping unseen across the city. Kasumi stared at the spot where a surrogate sibling had disappeared into the night. "Oh Ranma-kun…" She muttered to herself, conflicted about what she had done, and not done. You could always fine him running off on someone else's behalf, but for her? 'There's no stopping Ranma-kun when he puts his mind to it.' She told herself, but even unspoken, the words rang hollow to her ears. She was left alone with regrets. "Good luck Ranma-kun." She whispered to the empty room, feeling powerless to do much else.
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Ranma Saotome sat on a park bench in a small town south of Osaka in her female form, no matter how much she wished she could stay male. She had become much more comfortable with "Ranko" than when she had first gotten cursed, however circumstances had made it all but impossible to admit it. Accusations of perversion, unmanliness, as well as harassment by those around her had made it easier to treat this form as an abomination.
Perhaps to others it truly was. And her by association.
This however did not invalidate how useful it had been in the past few years, something Ranma had been forced to admit to herself. Ranko had her advantages as well as disadvantages. Oh sure, switching genders at inappropriate times had been equal parts embarrassing and harmful, but that was its own separate issue. In the end, it was something she could deal with. Hell, even started to embrace. Maybe she hadn't completely come to terms with being half female, but she was starting to work things out on her own.
So it wasn't the female aspect of her curse that was unwanted at the moment, it was how much she stood out. Bright red hair was not an easy thing to hide, especially in Japan, and being drop dead gorgeous didn't really help. Drop dead, because if you tried to hit on her that's what one punch would do to you. She would prefer to be male, make herself a little more innocuous on the road.
A slight rainstorm had overridden that decision, and so she was currently a woman.
At the moment though, she was not too concerned about her red hair attracting attention; she was too busy pondering on what exactly she was going to do. The escape had been easy, almost too easy really. Maybe no one had been expecting the sudden departure, maybe she had been lucky in eluding those back in Nerima, or maybe she was just that damn good at hiding herself. In all honesty it made her paranoid, but at the moment she couldn't let it dominate her mind. She was at least safe at the moment from the madness that was Nerima. For now, she needed to start on the second part of her plan.
She knew that it was only a matter of time until everyone in Nerima was out looking for her, no doubt Nabiki already had her connections scouring Japan and China for a red haired girl and a black haired boy with a pigtail. Pictures of both her forms would probably be on milk cartons soon enough, so the safest bet had been heading out to a place where no one would think of looking. She vaguely remembered this town from her time as a young boy, excited about learning martial arts. She had traveled to a lot of places and seen a lot of things while on the road, but this one place had stuck out in her head. It had been one of the more peaceful stops on a ten year long, grueling training trip. This was the first place she had completely mastered a school of martial arts. No horrible training techniques, no tortuous time with his father. Just straight martial arts practice underneath a competent teacher. Nothing about the experience or school itself had been extraordinary, but the nostalgia made her happy to be back in the area. Even better, and partly the reason she had chosen to come here, the town was so far removed from the hustle and bustle of modern life that by the time Nabiki's influence could have spread to here, she might already have made enough to fix the dojo.
The first part of the plan had worked well; she had escaped and was hidden. Now it was time to commence part b; getting cash.
She never had a problem getting by while on the road. Getting together enough to survive on was easy, even now, while laying low. Hell, you didn't even need money most of the time; she was doing just fine with only five thousand yen to her name. But Ranma needed to do more than just get by, she was attempting to get together enough to pay for repairs. Getting by was not going to do it, she needed to get a job.
This is why she was sitting on a bench doing nothing. The very thing that was her greatest protector against being found was also her biggest obstacle. Small towns were not known for the variety of jobs that they had available. She had gone to every store in town, and the only opportunities she had been able to find were odd jobs, and those would not garner income quickly enough. In summary, the town was poorer than dirt and she wasn't going to be able to find a good job unless she got lucky. Really lucky. "Hell, I won't be able to find a job in a place like this unless it came up and hit me in the face." Ranma complained to herself.
Coincidentally, a strong gust of wind at that very moment blew through the park, shaking trees and ruffling clothes. A seemingly innocuous newspaper that was lying on the ground was caught up in this powerful blast of air and got flung off the ground, traveling along in the wind. It managed to make it about ten feet before all the momentum it had gathered was stopped by a collision.
With the face of a pigtailed marital artist.
Ranma groaned to herself and pulled the paper from her face. "Me and my big mouth." She muttered to herself as she opened it up. "Might as well see if they got any jobs in this thing."
Well what do you know! Her eyes scanned the page and quickly knocked off several different jobs that either paid far too little or were far too embarrassing (what kind of small town would need a model for their swimsuit covers), before a colorful ad at the bottom caught her eye.
Looking for help at small shrine. Provided room and board. Salary negotiable. Must be familiar with martial arts, spirits, supernatural creatures, curses, and magical artifacts. Should be able to adapt to any situation. If interested contact provided number.
Ranma gave a dead-eyed stare at the ad for over a minute before finally shaking herself out of it. The newspaper was quickly crumpled up and thrown with a light toss over her shoulder. She got up from the bench and started walking away, muttering curses to herself.
Ranma was not stupid. Oh sure, she wasn't the most intelligent person, she was very blinkered in what she pushed herself to be good at, she did not take academics very seriously, and she could be led around easily with just the mention of honor, but she was not stupid. She had been involved in enough attempts on her life and subtle attempts to manipulate her to recognize an obvious trap.
And if this ad hadn't been written specifically for her, she'd go out with Kuno.
No, she wasn't stupid enough to fall for something like this, no matter how dire the straights were at the moment. She was going to figure out some way to make money on her own. With a determined stride she headed for the gate to the park, and made it about five feet before the wind picked up and the crumpled up newspaper made itself apparent again, smacking into the back of her head and landing at her feet.
She gave it a glare which by all rights could have set it on fire before picking it up again and tossing it fifty meters in the opposite direction. She dusted off her hands and headed off towards the edge of the park. She made it two steps this time before the thing impacted the side of her head and swirled around to land in front of her feet again.
A growl rolled out from the back of her throat as she glared down at the offending piece of paper. Her form blurred at the speed she reached down to pick it up. The newspaper found itself in a vice grip, crushed as densely as she could make it, and with a yell, Ranma threw it as hard as she possibly could. She watched with an inward glee as the crumpled up paper traveled into the skyline before quickly vanishing out of sight. Ranma nodded confidently to herself. This time she managed to make it ten steps before a new newspaper impacted into her face, already open to the jobs section. Ranma grabbed it, pulling it down from her face slowly as a vein started to throb in her forehead. The paper in her hands burst into flames as miniature moko takabishi made themselves present in both palms.
Before it had finished burning, three new ones had already impacted into her from three different angles. "Fine!" Ranma called, fist raised to the heavens, "I'll call the stupid number! But I know you're up to something!"
She turned around to head towards a telephone booth she had seen on the other side of the park, before stopping as she realized she had not been alone during this whole interaction. An old couple, a group of kids, and a yakitori vendor were all staring her down, possibly due to her outburst or possibly due to the fact that her anger had gotten the best of her and her ki had forced itself into the visible spectrum. She slowly let the red aura around her fade away and scratched the back of her head. "Sorry about that." She called out and tried to make her way as discretely out of the park as she could.
She inwardly cursed at herself for getting so easily riled up, and promised that she would make sure whoever did this to her would pay for the humiliation. Behind her back several gaps opened in the middle of the air and an arm reached out of each one in turn, grabbing the papers before anyone could get a hold of them. If anyone had been looking as these newspapers vanished into the gaps, they might have been able to read the title "Bunbunmaru News" before it disappeared from view.
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After letting loose her anger on an unsuspecting tree (now firewood for some lucky family), Ranma decided that perhaps this situation was not as horrible as she had made it out to be. She had been on edge for the last few days, even before she had decided to make a run for it. Nerima was not the kind of place where you were able to let your guard down, especially not if your name was Ranma Saotome. That was begging for someone to take a shot at her or get her drugged up and into a tuxedo before she could say "I do". Sure, there was no doubt in her mind that this was some sort of trap, but that meant she was already prepared for whatever was about to happen. What were the chances that they'd be able to trick her into something when she was expecting it? Maybe she could even manage to trick them, get enough money out of this whole thing to pay for repairs to the dojo, sneak out without a problem, and be back in Nerima by next Monday.
Yea, right.
Still, with positive thoughts in her head, Ranma shoved some loose change into a telephone booth, dialed the number at the bottom of the ad and waited. She got to two rings before someone picked up. Ranma waited through fifteen seconds of an uncomfortable silence before she realized she would have to be the one to break it. "Hello?"
"Hi!" A childish voice exclaimed. Ranma might not have been able to see the person on the other end of the line, but whoever was talking could not be older than ten. Also there was something about the voice that sent shivers running down her spine. Something about it made her think of those furry monsters, but she pushed that thought out of her head. There must be some of those little devils in the background, already a strike against the person who ran this ad. A sudden insight: what if she had called the wrong number? After all, what kind of person would have their kid answer the phone for a job? An image of Hinako Ninomiya flashed through her mind. 'Hopefully it's nothing like that.' Ranma thought to herself. 'Dunno if I could deal with someone like Ms. Hinako being my boss.'
"Hey, there was an ad in the newspaper that said you were looking for somebody to help out at a shrine. I was hoping I could take the job."
"No, this is Ms. Yukari's place. You have to call Rei-"
She heard a voice in the background call out for someone named Chan, or something like that, and then a whine let loose from the speaker that had her nearly jump out of the phone booth. Fortunately she managed hold it together fairly well, all things considered, and only smashed herself face-first into the glass. 'What the heck are they making these things out of?' There was some commotion on the other end of the line, as well as some words spoken that she couldn't quite make out, and then a new voice answered the phone. "Hello, who is this?"
This new voice coming out of the speaker was much more promising. Despite the interactions with her English teacher going much more smoothly in recent months, she would prefer someone who could keep enough focus to answer her questions. "Hey, I saw an ad in the paper for a job at a shrine. I was wondering if it was still open."
"Oh of course. We have been expecting your call. If you would excuse me a moment, I will go get my…superior." Before she could respond to that, Ranma heard the phone get put down and the sound of someone running off.
This time there was a much longer wait before she heard any movement on the other end of the phone. By the time a new voice greeted her, Ranma had begun to get annoyed at how difficult it was to willingly walk into this trap. When she finally heard someone new pick up the phone she answered a bit snappier than she had originally planned to. "So is this gonna be the person in charge of this job or should I just hang up?"
She was a very patient person when attempting to learn a new technique, but lost all semblance of it while interacting with others.
She was greeted with a throaty laugh and a sultry voice that put her on edge. A warning siren labeled fiancée began blasting through her head. "Yes, I am the one currently seeking a new assistant at a shrine. I assume you meet all the qualifications listed in the ad?"
Focusing on getting through this as painlessly as possible she responded, "More than you could believe lady."
"Well aren't you fortunate then? We are incredibly short staffed at the moment, and could use all the help we can get. Of course, you will need to start right away."
"Wait, that's it? You're hired? Just like that?" Ranma asked.
"Just like that. Were you expecting trumpets to inaugurate your employment? It is not so difficult to get a job, even in this harsh economy. As long as you are sure that you can cut it."
"I can take on anything that you can dish out," Ranma retorted, rising to the challenge laid out, "but…nah, never mind. Sounds good. Shouldn't be a problem to start right now. But listen, I was wondering if I could get some of the pay up front. I kinda owe someone a lot of money. I'm probably gonna need like four mill-"
She was interrupted before she could continue. "Oh don't worry. Money is not going to be an issue. Any debt you have incurred I would be willing to pay off. Under the right circumstances of course."
Ranma gulped audibly at that statement. Ominous. Very ominous. "Listen I ain't gonna run out on you." Sounds more like something pops would do, she thought to herself. "If you could pay for everything I'd do whatever you want." It took a few moments before Ranma realized what she had said, the face she made was not pleasant.
'This lady better not be another Nabs or I'm screwed.'
"I believe we can hash out the details right now. If you would be willing to work at the shrine for several months, I think I could pay you…six million over the course of your time here."
Ranma's eyes almost bugged out of her head. "Six million yen!"
"Oh you're right, that's far too cheap for the benefits you would be giving to our little shrine. Would seven million be enough?"
Ranma could hear the teasing tone through the phone but still couldn't keep herself from squeaking out, "Yes! That's fine!"
"I'm glad to hear it. I'll be sure to take out the appropriate amount to pay for repairs to the dojo."
The worry she had felt before she made the call came flooding back. "How did you know-"
"I will however need your word that you will follow through with all the conditions of this contract."
That specific phrasing ground any thoughts going through her head to a halt. "You don't need me to sign nothing? Just my word?"
"Yes, I am sure that for you, it will be enough."
A thousand thoughts ran through her head. The biggest of them was how much she would be beholden to this woman if she agreed. Several months didn't sound that long but they could always find a way to drag themselves out, especially for someone like herself. You could get yourself into a lot of trouble over the course of a few days, let alone weeks. This woman had obviously done her homework; if this was a trap than it was aiming for something more than just taking her out or getting her in a tuxedo. This woman was trying to tie her down. If she gave her word to work for her, she wouldn't be able to back out. There were so many things that she could be forced to do. But could she manage to find another offer like this? Was it worth it to sell away herself just to fix a dojo?
An image of Kasumi crying found its way back into her head.
"I'm not gonna be doing anything illegal or hurting nobody."
"Of course not."
Ranma took a deep inhale and exhale. 'Ain't like I got anything waiting for me back home.' She thought to herself. "You have my word as a martial artist that I will not back out on our deal."
"Perfect. I'm so happy to have you joining our little group Ranma. I can't wait to meet you. Bye bye."
Before she could say anything else she heard the phone click and the line went dead. "Huh, I never gave her my name." Ranma said absentmindedly to herself as she hung up the phone. "Knew it was a trap. Still…can't be any worse than working for Nabs."
She shouldered the pack she had left leaning on the side of the phone booth. If her employer wanted her to start today, she was going to get this meeting over with as quickly as possible. Fixing the dojo was her top priority. Sure, she would have liked to get the money as quickly as possible, but a few months wasn't bad for several thousand yen. Start now, and she probably could pull it off before anyone found her. Some shrine that had to take ads out to find workers couldn't be doing too well. However, one more problem presented itself before she could get started.
"Where the hell am I supposed to meet her? She never gave me an address." A quick glance down at the ad yielded no positive results. "Huh, guess I'm gonna have to call back."
She took one step back towards the phone booth before letting out a scream as the ground she was walking on opened up and she fell feet first into a void filled with eyes. Honestly, she had expected something like this. Perhaps not quite so blatant, but things had been going far too smoothly for how obvious a trap this whole thing was. Also Ranma reassured herself that she did not just scream, she was shouting out a war cry and it was in no way girly.
After she disappeared from sight, the hole closed up without a mark, as if it had never been there. Ranma blindly fell through a void of eyes, without direction or anything to tell how fast she was falling or where exactly she was going. And then as soon as it had started, it stopped. She was no longer in a swirling tunnel of a thousand peering eyes, instead she had landed butt first on a grassy hill, overlooking a lake. Ranma took a few seconds to let her mind put itself back together before dusting herself off, jumping to her feet, and taking a look around.
The banks of a large lake stretched out before her. It was crystal clear and seemed to go on for a few kilometers, with a mist coming off of it, making it difficult to see clearly to the other side. As far as she could see, the lake was surrounded by a thick forest except for one area where the forest had been cut back to make room for…a house? No, far bigger than a house, a mansion! Either way, the view was completely stunning. Involuntarily she found herself whistling as she took in everything in front of her.
"It is beautiful, isn't it?"
That voice was fresh in her mind. Ranma had swung around into a defensive stance before the woman had finished talking. Her little trip may have made her a bit cautious about where she had been sent. "O-h-h-h, now don't be quite so jumpy Ranma-chan," Yukari said with a smile and a wink, "You shouldn't threaten your boss like that."
Ranma relaxed at those words. Not a lot, but she still relaxed a bit. At least now she was face to face with the woman she had metaphorically sold her soul to. At least she hoped metaphorically, could never tell with some of the people that seemed to pop up around her. It was almost certain, at the very least, she would need to fight this woman to gain her freedom back at some point. She assessed the woman's threat level, and was taken aback at the power that flowed naturally out of this woman. Her eyes narrowed a bit, whatever power this woman had, it was not human. She had been around enough oni and spirits to notice the difference. This definitely wasn't just some woman, and she set off her danger senses more than either of the two ancient martial artists back in Nerima. As nonchalant as she could, she placed her hands behind her head and started walking towards her new boss. "Oh hey, nice to meetcha…"
"Yukari. Yukari Yakumo." She said, slowly turning the parasol that lay over her shoulder as she held out her hand. "And it is a pleasure to finally meet you Ranma-chan."
"Yea, nice to meetcha. Seems like a nice place you're in charge of." Ranma said with a quick handshake, her eyes never leaving the being in front of her. "So you gonna explain what just happened?"
"Welcome to Gensokyo," Yukari said with an overdramatic sweep of her arms, "The land of fantasy and illusion. I am the youkai of boundaries; opening a gap between this world and yours was child's play for one like me. As I said, I believed it would be best to have you start right away"
The mention of being in a completely different land was filed away for later. Ranma gave a few stomps to the ground, before plucking a few pieces of grass out of the ground and inspecting them. "Huh, feels pretty real to me."
Yukari gave Ranma a look of utter disdain at that comment; with just a glance Ranma was told that she was a complete fool for even thinking that sentence, let alone uttering it aloud. "Gensokyo is not a land which does not exist. It is a world separated from the one you know by the great Hakurei barrier. A realm created for Youkai, oni, gods, and spirts; beings such as myself and others that needed to escape the modern world which has lost its belief in us. A safe haven to make sure that we are not forgotten forever."
'Huh, made a deal with a Youkai. Pretty dangerous one if she's supposed to be in charge of this place. Still…can't be much worse than working for Nabs.' Ranma thought to herself, as she processed the information. "So…why'd you come looking for me for the job?" She asked.
"Just as I said in the ad, the Hakurei shrine needs a priest, or perhaps priestess, to help alleviate some of the responsibilities that the current miko faces." She said, ignoring the "I'm a guy" muttered out after the implication. "As you can imagine, many of the beings living in Gensokyo live on conflict. We needed someone capable of handling anyone they would come across, and I thought that another human would have been a better choice than a youkai. This world has had some difficulty with the interactions between youkai and humans as of late. I have been keeping tabs on you for quite some time, and I do not believe I could find a more capable person to assist Reimu. You will fit in with the residents of Gensokyo better than I think you would believe. Maybe find some kinship among some of them."
"So basically you were just looking for someone to deal with the stuff this miko doesn't wanna do, able to take care of the monsters and wouldn't get beat down by them?"
"Exactly!" She said, clapping along, "I'm glad to see that you can think for yourself."
Ranma blushed a bit at the taunt and decided to cut this conversation off as quickly as possible before he got made a fool. "Well then where is this Hakurei shrine? I'd like to meet my coworker."
"Hmmmm," Yukari hummed to herself, "More boss than coworker I would imagine…now I could tell you where to find the shrine, but where would the fun in that be? Why don't you take a look around for yourself? Get a lay of the land. You'll be able to introduce yourself better that way, see the sights, and I have a feeling you'll be meeting some very important members of Gensokyo." She said with a grin that seemed far too predatory. "Just be sure to introduce yourself as the new priest of the Hakurei shrine. It will make things much easier when you meet others."
"So you're not gonna give me any info on what I'm supposed to be doing for my job?"
"No." Yukari said. Then, with a smile and a wink, she stepped back into a gap and was gone.
Ranma spent a moment staring at the space where her new boss used to be, and let out a long sigh. "Should have known that something like this was gonna happen. Still ain't tryin' to kill or marry me yet, so not as bad as it could be." She took a long look at the scenery surrounding her, took in a deep breath of the fresh spring air and let it out slowly. A small bit of ki began to bleed into the visible spectrum. She felt the power flow through her body as she got her second wind. The miserable couple of months seemed to wash away in an instant.
"No fiancées, no rivals, no obligations. Cut off completely from all the problems back home. No way Nabs is gonna be finding me in another dimension. Just wandering around with a bunch of super powered monsters." Ranma smiled to herself and began to meander down the hill. "I think I'm gonna like this place. Guess we'll find out who's living in the house."
------------
Several days ago
------------
"HE DID WHAT!"
The triple scream of Akane, Genma, and Soun echoed throughout the neighborhood, scattering any nearby residents of the district, who knew better than to stick around when high powered martial artists were shocked, angered, or interested in something. The Saotome family sans one, Nabiki, Akane, and Happosai were all situated at the dinner table staring at Kasumi, with the three previously mentioned on their feet at the announcement that had been given.
"Oh my, yes. He told me he was leaving last night and left a letter for everyone." Kasumi said with her usual "my head is in the clouds" expression. A letter came out of her pocket and was handed to Nabiki, smart enough to rush for it before any of the three stooges decided to get their grubby hands on it. Any news on Ranma was money just waiting to be made. She began reading out loud to avoid any attempts to take the letter before she was through. Still, everyone at the table was behind her immediately, reading along over her shoulder.
Hey,
Heading out on a training trip. Don't look for me. Gonna make some money to fix the dojo. Can't do that here. Don't wanna have Nabs dressing me up and selling pictures or nothing. Sorry I can't bring anyone along or I ain't gonna get nothing done. I figure after the wedding we all need to cool off anyway. I'll be back soon.
Ranma
As she finished the letter, everyone's reactions were exactly what one would expect. Akane had worked herself into a frenzy about how Ranma had left her for presumably one of his fiancées, and lacking that some random floozy. The fathers began to rant to each other about how Genma's "disgraceful son" had run away, the schools would never be joined, and they needed to go plan a new wedding right away. Nodoka stood off to the side unsure about whether to declare how manly her son was for taking care of this responsibility, or unmanly for leaving his fiancées behind.
The only one who stuck out as odd was Happosai. At the moment, the man just sat back smoking his pipe and watching the events around him. He was enjoying the way things were beginning to progress. As soon as Ranma had mastered the more advanced techniques of anything goes he would be able to hand off the title of grandmaster and begin his long awaited retirement. Visions of tropical beaches and beautiful women flashed through his head. Happosai spaced out of reality imagining his time with beautiful women in the near future.
Nabiki may have noticed the odd behavior coming from Happosai had she not been too busy hurrying into the other room to make some calls. If Ranma thought he was going to be getting away from her that easily he was dead wrong. While she was at it, she might as well let the other fiancées know, for a price. A working girl needs to eat after all.
"Oh, Miss. Saotome, I almost forgot. He wrote a letter for you specifically." Kasumi said, handing the red-headed woman her letter, stopping everyone in their tracks.
Nodoka stopped her ponderings on the manliness of her son and grabbed the letter. Hearing another letter from Ranma existed, everyone had gone rushing towards Nodoka. They were cut off (almost quite literally) when she grabbed a knife lying on the table and in a dramatic wave cut the letter open. Nodoka's ability with a blade was legendary, and not for her skill; everyone had jumped back as quickly as they could when they saw anything with an edge enter her hand. This gave her enough time to scan the letter without anyone else getting the chance to see it. Suddenly she grabbed the letter to her chest and began to dance around, waving fans in the air and proclaiming how manly her son was.
Everyone who had witnessed this slowly looked at each other, the silent question easily readable in the air. Nabiki spoke it anyway.
"What the hell did he write to her?"
Dromeosaur
Feathery Raptor of snowy planes and frozen sea
- Location
- The land of Trees and Squirrels
Well, never played Touhou or read Ranma, but watched.
Chartic
Literally the Worst Human in the Fandom
- Location
- St. Paul
You guys may be getting a rewrite of the first chapter before you see a second (though I already have that nearly written). I have had some criticism of this being influenced by Fandom (which is true) and having a very unoriginal Ranma section, which is mainly an infodump. I'm going to reowkr this and hopefully clean it up.
My computer at the moment is shot so I'm probably gonna be doing it at work
My computer at the moment is shot so I'm probably gonna be doing it at work
