"She doesn't love you, she will never love you, move on with your life."
"I... I want to be with her."
It was an old argument.
"People want lots of things that are bad for them, like drugs, or to gamble, or fatty foods, it doesn't mean it does them a damned bit of good."
heh heh heh...
"She pity's you."
That hurt, my moms eyes were serious and cold.
"Im speaking to you as a woman now not as your mother. A woman can be kind to a man she pities, she can be warm but that is not love, it is not affection, it isn't even friendship.
...............................
BWAHAHAhahaha..! Oh, that's nice... Dudes got a sense of humor.
"School is work, there should be boundries between work and your personal life. Homework is a violation of that concept."
"But homework is-"
"Expected? people need time to themselves to be themselves. You are not your job, not your occupation not your social status Ru. The way this country treats it's men is deplorable."
"Men? But don't women have a, you know?"
He snorted.
"Who has more power, the person who earns a paycheck or the person who decides how its spent?"
"Um."
"Because that's the tradition here, the wife gets full control over how the money is spent and the husband lives off of an allowance."
"Ok thats one thing but women still?"
"Can't vote? They have the vote, don't get custody of the children after a divorce? I assure you they do, yes they get screwed over in the work place but let me tell you some thing the salary man gets screwed hard. Your expected to work long hours, you can't leave until the boss leaves and then your required to do social stuff because of company spirit or some other such bullshit."
"But that serves a purpose, doesn't it?"
"Yeah, it makes the company more money, but it deprives that employees wife of her husband, deprives his children of their father, by the time a salary man gets home he's tired and doesn't have any energy left to give."
He looked around.
"By the time the man retires he goes home to a wife that is a stranger to him, its not sustainable."
"And what do you thinks going to happen?"
He were sitting on a skyscraper.
"This economic miracle will end, the japanese promise of lifetime employment will end companies will look at the bottom line and rip apart the social contract but expect their staff to keep the same insane hours, to continue to do many times unpaid over time. People will continue to be worked to death."
"Worked to death?"
"Happens all the time kid, and eventally people will see its all bullshit. Men wont have time for kids, so they won't have them and the birth rate will collapse."
"Cant people just emigrate here?"
"Wont work kid, speaking as an outsider? If you're not Japanese you will never be Japanese I am tolerated, not accepted but tolerated and I am goddamned awsome."
He kicked a can.
"That's why I'm teaching you the stuff I'm teaching you, Japan likes their boxes but guys like us? We don't belong in a box, never have and never will, so I'm trying to teach you how to make money outside that box."
"So we're weirdos?"
"Kid, once your rich and powerful enough you stop being weird and start being an eccentric. You want to live life by your own rules, then you have to earn it. Once you do, you have a weirdness coupon and can live as you please. Giving the finger to all the pearl clutchers of the world."
This guy is beautiful.
remember a mages power, his real power isn't in direct combat, it's in his ultility."
"Huh?"
"A martial artist is like a fine sword, a Mage is like a swiss army knife. Who's better in a fight?"
"The sword?"
"Which is more useful in day to day life?"
"The knife?"
Yes and no. Read Royal Road some time. Chi can enhance just about anything... it's just that battles with screaming man-boobs and silly dance spells are better entertainment than the farmer who floats over his field in lotus pose cultivating crops as multipurpose as most spells or the civil engineer who maintains all of the barrier flag powered utilities. Slice of Life are rare in wuxia.
"So I should just do what she wants?"
He looked at me.
"Once you pay Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane."
Depends on how you go about it. She WANTS this. So make her pay for it and get your worth out of it, on your terms.
I continued to stare at Akane.
"Are there any love potions?"
He spun me around and got to eye level, the area around us went grey. We were in one of his hidden worlds, alone.
"Oh yeah love potions, I know how to make those, hell if you know where to look you can find them here in this world, but here's the thing love potions they're... well who am I kidding, they're rape."
Heh, good to see someone make this point without blowing the story sideways.
We will start by giving you some magic circuts."
...........You're using
type-moon and think chi is the blunt weapon to magics multitool? Wut..?
"It's hard, but once mastered you could instantly find out what is wrong with a persons body, which makes healing faster, fixing objects becomes easier, you can make a paper fan as tough as steel and make yourself super human.
Mimicking the most basic chi moves.
If you and Ranma went job hunting you would win hands down.
I wouldn't be so sure. Ranma could get a job teaching chi arts, which is his stated purpose in the story. He could join the police or JSDF and soar through the ranks. He could teach them and make all sorts of black ops bucks. He could enter a construction company and become their high profit demo contract. If the anime is taken into account, he could become a pop idol. Then there's a thousand and one ace athlete positions. If he decides to train with Tofu Ono he could become a magic doctor comparable to Hikaru here. With Hiryu Shoten Ha he could even learn to imitate that weather magic Hikaru was promised. Umisen-ken opens up everything from high class cat burglar to assassin to government and secret society ace up the sleeve. And that's all without adding anything outside of cannon. "Don't try to outshine the sun" was more accurate. Most ranma fanfics are stupid about his job prospects though, so I don't hold it against you.
You want to date a catgirl, there is a world full of them! Elvish girls your thing, we can do that, just get over her."
"Akane's special."
noooooooooooo, you idiot! Take the offer! Get the catgirl! Or the Elf! Or the best of both with a kitsune! With their fetish for transformation, your kitsune can be Akane!
"She doesn't deserve him."
Sensei nodded.
"You're right kid, boy deserves better, and so do you."
heh, yeah, but then none of the fiance's are really good for Ranma. He's not exactly good for them either, but that's because he's kinda petty and really immature. I'd say Nabiki would be best, but you've gone with a rather dark interpretation of her here.
"I want to try the new chinese place, the one with the cat."
Um... didn't that take several weeks to set up? Ranma's only JUST arrived.
with a female friend, you can be as open as you want with your feelings and they will be supportive of you.
They've got to be a pretty good friend, or doing that will shut down any relationship or relationSHIP you have with them faster than even betrayal.
Kuno is static and you're always learning more things.
That's mostly a character flaw for Kuno, on a deep personal level.
Magic's about playing the long game."
A sorcerer in his lair is at his most dangerous.
Ranma had been gone awhile.
"So where's, um..."
"Your romantic rival? France, and will be for the next month,
that was alot of timeskip.
"And Hitler was just an artist, look that thing I did was a one shot. It was a one time deal where all her rolls would come up snake eyes, but Soun Tendo wont care. Asshole isn't rational about his kids and we're going to have to look for allies."
One, that's straight up unfair, as characterizations go. Two, how the hell would Tsoun even
know Plot Device Sensei or Gotsunkugi were involved?
japan's birthrate is falling, this has a lot of causes but fixing it is not something japan's capable of doing politically."
"Why not?"
"Too much would have to change, land use, corporate policies, politics, the crash is built into the system.
In a word, feminism. And Japan can't exactly take the axe to it, because america pushes it and Japan depends on their support.
Ranma's mother... god damned that woman has connections like a god damned spider.
That's an upgrade... And did we hit another big timeskip? Labelle france happened in january, and Nodoka didn't show up until the April.
So back to the map, this is the middle east, right now they make bank. Oil goes from there to Japan and East Asia and everyone takes a cut along the way, this makes oil expensive."
He pointed to Iwate, people are not having enough children, that means japanese exports will get more expensive, they will lose their edge, and the smaller generation will simply be unable to deal with the expense of taking care of their elders.
"This is Iwate, they used to sell minerals, gold, coal, stuff like that. Right now they're all tapped out and the economy's going to get worse, but they do have a ley-line system right off the coast right here and there's going to be an inter planetary event on sunday that's going to provide a large spark of power."
He circled an area.
"Iwate is far away from any potential chinese and russian land claims, it's firmly in japanese territory, the number of people is low and they already have the industry needed."
He pointed at the ocean.
"The ocean has resources, tones of them but human beings won't be able to get to all the oil because of current tech limitations, but lets say we do a land swap? Or resources swap, oil free land for Oil rich land just off the coast of Japan."
My hands shook.
"How much oil?"
"Enough to equal Saudi Arabia's super fields, If I pull it off."
"So Japan will sell oil."
"No."
I blinked.
"Why not?"
"Dutch disease, if Japan takes advantage of all the oil their export based economy collapses because the price of the yen will skyrocket. This is about giving japan a piggy bank to survive some very lean times."
"Because of oil?"
"Yeah Japan will be in a prime position, they can use that oil wealth to maintain themselves and rebuild. If we pull it off then that will give us an accord with the Japanese government."
"And Nabiki won't be able to touch us?"
"No one is untouchable but we can use the connections to get her parents to back off. I want us to be in a position where if she does come after us she comes after us alone."
The train stopped, he gave me a stack of bills.
"Theres a hospital here, you're going to be healing people on your own. I have to head out."
I spent the rest of the day at the hospital healing people, MacGuffin sensei came back late at night, drenched and miserable.
"So?"
"There were some complications."
"What kind of?"
"Fucking spirits."
He crashed on the couch.
"So it was a failure?"
"Nah, but it was only a partial success half is better then nothing, but it still sucks."
"So what does this mean?"
"Didn't tell the government the shear scale of my ambitions, and getting something's better then nothing. For the government it gives them some breathing room if they need it."
Rofl. Did this come from research? Because Japans building some deep sea rigs. It's pretty impressive tech.
Also? You're not fun... that ritual would have been a high point of the story to read.
We heard a knock at the door and a woman in a traditional yukata walked in, she was amazing my jaw dropped and-
"So they finally sent a ninja, you here to kill me or as a honey pot."
The woman blinked, frowned and then sighed.
"That easily?"
"I'm a mage, we pride ourselves on being able to think, this is my apprentice. So introduce yourself your cover at least, I know I'm not getting your name."
"Sakura."
He rolled his eyes.
"Really? I mean really kind of pretentious and the flower name thing just makes it obvious."
She purred.
"You have done a great service to Japan."
"Nope."
She blinked.
"What?"
"Too young, do not want, age 25 is the bare minimum required to ride this ride, see you in ten years."
"I'm 19 years old."
He shut the door, and we heard a cry of exasperation, I stared at him.
"But she-"
"Kid, word of warning never stick it in the crazy."
He put a blanket over himself and went to sleep, the next morning we went back on the train back to Nerima. Sensei read a newspaper and a woman walked in.
"Oh I'm sorry I didn't know this was-"
"Ninja."
She frowned.
"Sakura told me you were good."
"Name?"
"Subaru, like the car."
"I prefer women, not girls, but women, that said what do you want?"
The ninja woman smiled.
"I think I am going to like you Mr. Macguffin, the japanese government want me to watch over you and your apprentice. How long will you be in Japan?"
"I got another 6 years here, and then I have to go."
"Really, so soon."
"A cowboy has to ride off into the sunset."
"A pity."
She took a place next to him and we played poker, we both lost.
Huh. I was expecting Ukyo or Konatsu to be the ninja. Ukyo-kunoichi i something of a trope.
and then there is 42."
He stops.
"Never ,ever have a runic display that adds up to 42."
"Why not?"
"Because it's the number of letters in one of the hidden names of god,
Guess we know where Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy got it's inspiration.
I felt frustrated this would be so much easier if he was just an asshole.
roflmfao. One hopes this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. But I doubt it.
**
Oddly enough, no. Plot Device sensei kept trying to tell you...
"Pity I'm going to have to recruit that deviant for the role of Raoul."
My sensei leaned against the wall.
"Curses are a thing Hiro, I talked about this with you."
Ranma as Raoul?
The entire school was here, people from other schools officials, this was big. Hiro, our director looked at us.
"I want you to know som thing, I had a dream, a small simple dream to preform a play to get applause for this tiny pathetic shell of a school, to finally have a tiny bit of success. You slothful horrid children took that from me. All you had to do was give me a hour your time once a day for two weeks. 14 hours is all that I asked of you and you horrid monsters couldn't even give me that."
His face was red.
"Only two, two people came and did their basic duty, simply show up and rehearse, Saotome and Gosunkugi. That's it, those two will receive not just a letter grade up but a trip to the amusement park from my own pocket. The rest of you..."
He paused trembling with rage.
"Every single student in school is here watching you, if you fail you will not only pour urine all over my hopes and dreams you will humilate yourselves. I have invited a local newspaper, several important officials and your families. If I am going down I am going to take all of you animals, and thats what you are animals, down with me."
He paused.
"I would tell you not to fail me, but we all know this to be impossible instead I ask you not to humilate me that horribly. Burn in hell all of you, except Saotome and Gosunkugi, burn in hellfire. Now go, the play is starting."
One hell of a roast.
AUCTIONEER
"Sold. Um, your number, man?"
Well... that was... certainly something.
what happens to me after high school Ru? Who do you think is going to hire me? I'm a freak, and the only thing I know is the Way."
uuummmmmmmm.............I have a rant, I can recopy it here..!
you're the only friend I have Ru."
Which is funny, because Ranma would probably actually think that last bit. But Ru doesn't.
Hikaru, Ranma needs a Bro. Go out, have drinks, and complain about how Tatewaki Kuno is a shit.
That's be a hilarious chapter.
And I like your portrayal of Ranma here. He's not perfect but he tries to be a good guy. I'm not sure how close to canon it is, but it's a writers prerogative to blow off canon, so it works.
Cannon Ranma is petty, immature and pretty cunning. He also tries to be a good guy whenever people don't get his hackles up and he loves the constant battles, contrary to most fanfiction writers. Something like 80% of his smiles are during fights. I'd agree with the fannon though that he doesn't like the situations
surrounding most of his fights and that those circumstances could depress him.
Bro, not ship.
This was great, but I do have a question, doesn't Ranma actually get decent to good grades?
I seem to remember a volume of the manga where he thought he did poorly but everyone else was stunned by his grade being so high?
It's been years so maybe I misremembered though.
::Edit:: Ah ok I did misremember a bit, it was chapter 289. Principal Kuno threatened to show his test scores to everyone and Ranma didn't care until Principal Kuno claimed the grade was bad. When it was finally shown on TV Ranma seemed to feel it was fine, though Genma hit him on the head afterwards.
It was never suggested that Ranma failed any of his classes. That ranma is shocked and outraged by Kuno saying he did badly should be an indication. Another being where he admits his only time in school other than Furikan is when the Truent police made him to go school with Ryouga. That' he's allowed into class with his grade level, when Japan is super strict about test based grade advancement should say it all.
You see I'm the daughter of a martial artist, the leader of the anything goes school. Dad was powerful, mighty strong, but he didn't have a whole lot of cash. Then one day mom gets sick and she starts wasting away, and all that power, all that might means nothing. We didn't have enough money to fix her so she died. Kasumi remembered her and tried to become her, Akane doesn't really remember her and maybe she's the lucky one. Me, I'm smart, really smart and I remembered her wasting away because we didn't have enough money.
That's an intersting take. I think I'm gonna poach it, if you don't mind.
Nope. You're just straight in both bodies, unfortunately.
Me? Once I'm out of high school, what the hell am I going to do? Seriously what am I going to do?
Ranma could get a job teaching chi arts, which is his stated purpose in the story. He could join the police or JSDF and soar through the ranks. He could teach them and make all sorts of black ops bucks. He could enter a construction company and become their high profit demo contract. If the anime is taken into account, he could become a pop idol. Then there's a thousand and one ace athlete positions. If he decides to train with Tofu Ono he could become a magic doctor comparable to Hikaru here. With Hiryu Shoten Ha he could even learn to imitate that weather magic Hikaru was promised. Umisen-ken opens up everything from high class cat burglar to assassin to government and secret society ace up the sleeve. And that's all without adding anything outside of cannon.
All I know is how to break things and hurt people,
There are
THOUSANDS of careers for people who specialize in hurting people and breaking things, and most of them aren't illegal. This ignoring the core of Chi which is to enhance things and all of the crazy martial arts styles where even accounting showed up as a martial style at one point.
"Ru's under my protection, never ever pull something like this again."
Plot device sensei, you should know by now, Ranma didn't do this on purpose.
Though, I suppose that's why he's being so calm about it...
"Kid, I have not had decent mexican food for 50 years, I'm a california boy if your friend wants my money, well I want some mexican food."
"But O-"
"Don't care about your japanese pancakes."
Ukyo shrugged.
There's mexican style Okonomiyaki. I've had it. It's about as good/bad as mexican pizza.
"So...you yanks barely have any martial artists, or wizards or anything. How the hell did you guys beat us."
I stared at her.
"Well, there was this bomb..."
"I know about the bombs, but we have guys that can out run cars. How the hell did we lose?"
Because the Asian Psychology responds strongly to shows of strength. Japan was prepared to fight to the last man on their mainland, even to the point the kids were being trained specops in the classrooms. But that bomb hit and the fight went completely out of them, something the total and complete bombing of Tokyo and annihilation of their entire empire did nothing to deter.
Because the two cities bombed were picked because Japan was absolutely certain those cities would be safe. When we bombed the designated christian and jewish cities of japan, they came to the conclusion that there was nothing we would not do if they resisted.
Probably because even if America has comparatively few martial artists, mages, mad scientists and superheroes, we probably still had more than Japan just because of the sheer population differences.
More importantly we had
all of them at once when Japan specialized. As happened with every other thing between the Japanese and Americans.
"They coulden't do any thing complex so they put in three commands, make people smarter, make people more lucky, and preserve democracy from tyrants."
Two of those fail pretty regularly. And I'm not talking about the luck boost.
................interesting.
One very important nail in the Tendo household has been removed.
Kasumi, right?
Nabiki kept Ranma semi-happy? hubuwha?
Probably Kasumi, not Nabiki. As much as I like Nabiki.
"So... why do girls like jerks."
Because while men seek beauty, women seek status. By treating a woman whos interested in you poorly, you're affirming her belief that you're above her, and that's sexy. There's millions of psych interviews and thousands of papers about this and there are two themes. It works so long as you're not truly awful, and women don't understand why they like it.
"Yeah girls, there's a difference between a girl and a goddamned woman. When a girl puts on her fucking big girl pants and gets over herself? Well that's something goddamned special, might even be worth dying over, that's a woman."
Women are pretty rare, I guess. You can genderflip that too, sometimes.
"Yep, knew the entire time, notice that Uyko never actually told you that she was a man, you assumed and when you assume you make and ass out of you and me."
If you read the manga without english translation, she uses all male pronouns. There's
almost two japanese languages, because of how men and women talk differently.
Your real question was why don't girls like nice guys and here's the reason. When you treat girls like a queen or a goddess or whatever your putting them on a pedestal."
And they take that to mean you're low status, and thus uncute.
"Thing is about pedestals, there is nowhere to go but down. It's stressful and agonizing trying to live up to those kind of expectations and you can't really be yourself."
That's really not it. Women gain self esteem from others respect. Psych 101. The problem with women and pedastals is when people get mad at your failures, not being held up on one.
"Maybe a couple days would be ok..."
Sensei sighed.
"Fine whatever, three days, Ranma you want to be Hikaru so badly? Well congratulations your getting my full attention and a crash corse on all the academics you missed out on. Hikaru you're on your own for the duration, if you change your mind you know where I am."
roflmao. Freaky Friday! The Heresy train has no brakes!
"You're not Ranma...."
huh, how did he...
He stopped struggling.
"What are you-"
"Ranma doesn't fight this way, he gloats more, he talks more, who are you?"
I let him go and he studied me waryly.
"There was this magic thing."
The boy nodded in understanding.
"Yeah I get it now, so mixed up bodies then?"
You know, I think it says something about my life that the people around me just take all of this in stride.
Wow... Ryouga's a lot smarter than normal.
"Yeah, all the gajin in Tokyo heard there was a mexican place and they swarmed it."
roflmfao. I suppose... There are alot of navy boys there who didn't come to Japan because they wanted to be japanese.
I snorted, there was no way in hell any woman was ever going to have a crush on me.
A good freaky Friday. Good show, cherico!
Wow... it finally happened.
That was certainly interesting. Although, I think Mao would have liked the amazons. He was very publicly pro feminism and the amazons are a punishing matriarchy.
We ate in silence, with that done, I had a few drinks and went back to the cemetery, like I always do. Like I always will.
Poor guy.
He left my resturant and I was left in the darkness alone, Ranma and I knew each other, our fathers had a deal... it was best to go with the safe option, it hurt less that way.
Oh, you silly girl... Flirt with him once or twice. Your head will spin at how fast he pays attention.
Over all? The week was a win for me, I fixed things up with Uyko, got Mac to help me with my school stuff, and got Ru to help me with my homework and curses. Over all, I came out ahead and you know that's enough for me
Neat. I didn't think we were going to get Ranma side of that week. Even in summary format.
Danny Hebert, is that you?
It's a
really common trope. Probably because it's a pretty common psychological condition. Guys who actually love their wives take four times as long to get over a death (usually 8-10 years) according to studied done by Stanford and Brown from the 50's to the 2010's. Same for an only child dying.
IIRC, he's also well aware he has a bad temper and is terrified that he'll take it out on Taylor without her mother there to keep him copacetic. Though that may be fanon. It's been a good long while since I read worm.
Nah, it's mostly true. His interlude in the first or second chapter explains it all.
And I may be misremembering with them having an argument just before Annette died.
They did. Never anything about what it was about or how far it went. Only that they had one, then annette left to pick up taylor, was on the cellphone and crashed.
Estrogen tends to result in a slightly slowed aging process and an increase of speed.
Flexibility, not speed. At least medically. For Ranma1/2 and ki it's probably different.
a weaking of the hypergamous instinct."
"Huh?"
"Ok, they have done studies on this."
well hell... Ranma needs to get teaching nationally.
"I'm very very thirsty, I want... I need more from you."
how forward. And how dense.
"We're growing a chakra network while getting the energies already inside you to play nice. Just wait it out meditate."
Naruto rather than Hindu. Hmm...
shrug. Naruto chakra is much more chinese ki than it is chakra. All about meridians and accupoints rather than 7 spiritual power centers. Though 8 Gates Alignment comes close-ish.
"The amazon village has plenty of strong men,
Excepting the outside imports, that's a flip.
But hey, the communist angle is interesting.
I want Shampoo to stay here in Japan where it's safe."
"Why?"
"The communists are crushing us one by one, we're dying. Sooner or later their attention will turn back to us again. Shampoo is loved by the village, the girls see her as an idol and would gladly follow her into battle and she would get them killed."
though it does bring to mind the question of why the hell they don't just move to Japan. Despite the overcrowding conditions, there are a lot of pretty wide open spaces in Japan. Say nothing of the dying outer cities.
"Ever hear about true loves kiss? The toungue is full of nerves, more or less directly connected to the brain and is close by. Once I did that I could heal you a lot more effectively, uses less energy too."
You could have had her... and then you went nerdy.
Naruto, harry potter, were not the last jump, really Im hinting as hard as I can here, but heres another it was a anime/manga verse and it was a really really really crappy place.
Problem is there's an awful lot of anime where it's be a real grade A shitshow to live. Quite a lot of them with dark orphans too.
"Waited ten years to play a prank on them, you should have seen the look on their faces, it was so worth it."
rofl, that's probably better than cannon. Though the food and water situation is more or less always dealt with through chi substituting in chi worlds.
Akane and Nabiki are worse than their canon portrayal.
Akane's about the same, I'm pretty certain. Nabiki here is much worse though, for all I like what cherico did with her POV chapter.
"Ranma, Ryoga there's just enough residual magic to treat both of your curses not cure treat, we could change for example the trigger instead of cold water changing you it would be hot water. So as long as you too took cold baths and showers."
VERY
nice. Though, I have it on pretty good authority that hot baths/showers are heaven as a girl. Might still be something of a problem for the pig though, especially with his memory of Genma trying to boil him alive. Still, cold water is EASY so he wouldn't be a pig for long or often.
if we timed it right we could use the rising sun to power it. The sun had a epic ton of leylines to draw power from, sure we could only invoke a spark but that might just be enough.
Dawn is also a major point in alot of transformation magic, because it's a moment of transition.
"Can he, you know teach me a trade so I can get certified? There's lots of construction work."
FINALLY... Once you get the Umi/Yama-senken and HSH down, go demolitions expert. You can double as a Crane and as C4. Big bucks in both cases.
"Turning lead into gold is a multistage process where you remove protons and electrons from an element to create a new one. In order to turn led into gold first you must turn it into thallium and then mercury and then finally gold. Both thallium and mercury are highly toxic, theres a reason why alchemists tend to go a little nuts, become sickly or die when they go that route."
Since you're doing it by nuclear decay, it'd be easier to turn it into platinum by knocking off some two alpha particles. Could probably do it faster than trying to pull out individual protons and the result would be more valuable.
Or, hell, just buy a massive vat of mercury and hit it with the alpha decay spell. Mercury costs between 20c and 80c per kilogram Platinum is 31K$ per kilo.
"Back to construction, I can't teach you that, but have you ever considered demolition?"
Ranma blinked.
"Huh?"
"You see Japan, especially Tokyo ocasionally needs to have building's destroyed, the moneys good and plenty of martial artists are already in it. The problem is, well you need a license and the process is almost entirely political."
Ranma frowned.
"Oh."
"But the japanese government owes me a few favor, so we can get all of that taken care of in an afternoon."
yeeeeessssss........
Though I admit I hadn't thought of the political bit, given Ryouga just randomly learned chi mining for shits and giggles.
and thats what they are, monsters."
I don't think she likes mirrors. By conservative estimates, Mao killed 250 million people. The Chinese govt admits to 150 million. I don't care what the martial artists did to you, that shit goes beyond "when you fight monsters" and straight into 'call of cthulhu'.
Seriously, they should take that chinese propaganda mill they call a public school system and teach everybody to be chi users. Chinese communism w/is very publicly "all people are equal, but some are more equal than others" line from Orwell's animal farm with Han chinese being the '2 legs better'.
I nodded and slapped him hard, Tofu moved fast and was there almost instantly, I admit the sudden violence stirred something in me. I asked him to walk me home, I looked behind me at the bruised bleeding man, his eye was swollen shut and a few teeth were missing as he gave me a thumbs up.
I suppose that would work, you lunatic. It doesn't answer the gaping question of how he got TOFU over his "silly habits" as Kasumi calls them in manga. That's what I thought you originally meant when you talked about beeing beat the hell up chapters ago. Being in the room with the pair of them while detoxing Ono.
"Just taking out the garbage."
ooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccchhhh....
Again, I'll say I don't agree with your characterization of Nabiki, but this new Kasumi? Kinda like it.
"You honestly think you're not being punished?"
I blinked.
"You are Happosai, I sentience you to live."
heh, yeah, kinda. Nor sure why you're trying to make him
of all characters noble, but that was a pretty good job.
Some have called me a vampire, maybe this is true,
Need to give her some fox ears. And a tail.
There's all SORTS of vampires in Japanese folklore. But Kitsune are the only redeemable ones.
Ranma's full name pretty much roughly translates as wild horse.
His first name translates to wild horse. His family name translates to Rice Picker. Specifically, the saotome ("early maiden" 早乙女) were unmarried girls tasked with planting rice in paddies.
"Nope, jump really far, run really fast? But fly? Nah we can't do that."
Some can. And it's probably not
just because they're dragon and phoenix.
I smiled this vacation was going to be awsome.
fucking... dense...
But god its hilarious.
So now its Time for the official romance vote
The options are
(X) Uyko
(X) Hinako
(X) Ranma
way too late, but
[x] Ukyo
"It sucks, I still have to do all of the cooking because Akane can't do that, the old man refuses to, Nabiki's useless and Soun's in his own little world. 90% of my paychecks go into the household but instead of you know saving it..."
He sighed.
"Soun just forks it over to Nabiki, or Akane, or goes drinking with the old man. They're treating this like the money's just falling out of the sky and they don't get that sooner or later it's all going to come crashing down."
Huh... I'd ask why he isn't paying the bills directly, but being Ranma, he probably didn't even think about that. Genius with no foundation in jack shit all but chi martial arts.
The people not so much, there was a kind of polite, dignified poverty, I saw some spray painted grafitti of a woman being choked to death with a shoe. The mural was expertly and carefully crafted, with pains made towards making the older woman look realistic.
"There's a lesson in that kid, a person only needs so many pairs of shoes, go over that limit and people get upset."
👍
I walked with him, following the cursing, severed head.
That was... weird.
why is she tied up.. and in that outfit... huh Nabiki's there too and... that's Akane...
Huh... I suppose these are Ranma's mysterious enemeies. Because as much as I like Nabiki, I don't think the pair of them working together and cheating could hope to tie up Shampoo.
and it kind of is a mild attack on trans people because, that is kind of what Ranma is while he is in female form.
Not the way you're thinking about, he isn't. There's two types of trans. Autogynophiles, and dysphorics. Ranma is neither. He's got magic making him occasionally "who you would be as a girl". Given Ranma's straight, as a girl... also straight. Which disgusts his male side as his primary identity.
Ah, I see! Togenkyo.
When we got to the throneroom, I found Ranma and some kind of prince fighting
I suppose it was too much to hope for a fight scene.
god it's not even enchanted, that's... It's a bronze cage. A freaking normal man could escape that."
Akane's knuckles turned white.
"But."
Ukyo stepped in.
"WE'RE NOT INDULGING YOUR PRINCESS FANTASIES, JUST BREAK THAT FUCKING CAGE!"
Why wouldn't the cage be enchanted?
Ukyo smiled, and we went to sleep, when we woke up we watched the setting sun together, cuddled in blankets and after that we watched the stars.
literally hit by the ClueByFour. That's what it takes. lol.
New vote who do you want Ranma to be with?
Akane
Shampoo
Kodachi
Ryoga
faaaa.... why I come so late??
[x] Makoto Kino
or
[x] Herb Musk
More importantly, she's filthy rich, and Ranma really needs a sugar mama. He's not really cut out for modern life.
Muttering: Repeats job rant.
"Look, last jump there was this guy named Griffith, all the women loved him, his allies loved him, he was popular, smart and charismatic. So he screwed up and his friends saved him from getting tortured, he repaid them by sacrificing his entire army to demons. Only two people escaped that clusterfuck."
It was a
bit more complicated than that. But now you've nailed down the jump, I can see why you kept on calling it a shitshow.
"Why does my life have to be ruined because one person is a total ass?"
Well, I suppose if you're going to flanderize her bad side, at least it's not bashing. She's still competent, after all.
Its kind of irrelevent if their personally powerful.
Given Ki users worship strength, I'd argue that.
I patted her on the head and tried to sooth her as the music continued to play.
OUCH...
If there is a list of tropes that needs to die in a fire, magic dick fixing people of the crazy is near the top of the list.
Abusive Tsundere being best girl is another one for the bonfire.
As for Nabiki having government contacts, oh man, I can't remember which story arc it was, I think it may have been the Toma one with the wishing spring, or the 7 Lucky Gods? The one with the giant flying boat and the guy that ate only pickles and rice, which Akane almost killed with his cooking.
trouble in necron china. Anime only.
Everyone in China remembers being a ball that outsiders toyed with.
You got Europe addicted to tea, they got you addicted to opium. both mutually agreed upon trades. You held a boston tea party with half a million tons of opium and seize all european property, businesses and treasure in china, so Eruope showed you why your arrogance and bad politics were ill advised. Seriously, all they took from you in the end was an island and a trade contract. It's not like the middle east and africa where their country was redrawn by resource surveys.
Japan in WW1&2 was pretty standard for war at the time until Nanking, and if you look back on china's history of warfare, even Nanking was pretty standard affair, horrific as it is by our standards. Three Kingdoms and Ghengis Khan both did the same but on wider scales.
"Even a ninja can fall in love...."
Poor girl. He's gone in... what? 5 years now? Earlier he said 6, but I dunno how long it's been with your unmarked timeskips.
"Oh, um yeah, I'm probably just going to continue to do demolition."
👍
Don't sell yourself short though. Teaching the world chi arts and getting those civilian arts going is totally within your reach. If the entire JSDF are chi artists, the limitations put on them don't matter much.
"What the fucks a condom?"
The chance of catching aids from het sex is .01% and exclusively happens with needle drug users.
You should scan her for curses. I swear that's going to be one on Hikaru's ping.
THE BLACK ROSE SHALL REMAIN ON THE PILL UNTIL SHE IS READY TO BLOOM!"
That's got its own sheaf of psycho-medical papers, btw. Bad things are involved.
"Where is tigress?"
Sifu frowns and looks away.
"I...have a habit of always being just a little bit wrong, I was right about you being a Dragon, and Tigress being a warrior.... but I have yet to find the dragon warrior."
"Sifu where is?"
"She...is in prison, a special one made just for her, I'm sorry."
Y'know, destiny is a river worlds are a pain in the ass.
Vampire. Romances.
Then Ranma came in, and suddenly I had a fiancee I didn't ask for or want. Then Ranma stopped the attacks and suddenly I was safe and...I hated him because it wasn't me. I wasn't strong enough, I had to be saved. I was angry that Ranma was there, Angry that every thing had gotten harder, angry at all the chaos.
He also sort of stole her self identity by simply existing. Strongest in the district, inheritor of her dojo, a better girl despite being a boy, inexplicably popular with everybody like she used to be. Everything she defined herself by, except Tofu, Ranma was, but better. And he wasn't even trying.
"You're going into semi-retirement, no more honey pots, what you decide to do with your body one way or another is up to you."
Well, good for her. And if she gets the chance, yeah, she's gonna follow. Probably won't get the chance though. He'd have brought others with him before if there was the possibility.
"Will it hurt?"
He cringed.
Everything he's taught and done to you so far has hurt. Why are you even asking at this point?
All those potions and spells they can use to heal people.
less potions, more spells. Without any of the known magical fauna, Ru would need to make every recipie from scratch or be limited to what is already here, which is much more limited, if more profound.
"Yeah...still good job. I.. man I wish I could do that, just talk problems away. You're a good friend Ru."
He does enjoy the fighting itself, though. Maybe he, Moose and Ryouga can set up a Ki Stadium or something?
"Yeah look, there are spirits and youkai that are more or less harmless, Tanuki just prank you, Cat spirits are more or less harmless if annoying, and Kitsune....well most of japan has at least some Kitsune blood in us, thats why you see a lot of red heads here."
This is a gem.
Although, Kitsune in stories also have a very strong tendency to be Mac Guffin Sensei or Dumbledore.
Or Loki, as the mood strikes them.
"You're telling me a bunch of bored housewives summoned a demon, that is now-"
"Killing people, destroying property? Yeah, it happens more often then you think, honestly I'd rather deal with professionals like you and your sensei. Professionals are predicatble, you never know what fucked up shit a total amature will do."
roflmfao. I've oft heard a similar quote about martial arts and guns.
I don't suppose you've read the "Monster Hunter International" series by Larry Corea, by any chance? Because this is the prime directive the governments there use. Magic and monsters are to be discredited at every opportunity, because simply knowing attracts schmucks like flies to shit making everything worse for everybody except the bounty hunters of MHI.
The wait was agonizing, but eventually we were welcomed in, Ukyo was white as a ghost.
ah, mothers in law...
"Well that was officially pointless."
It's good bait for Ryouga, so not entirely pointless.
Sanity or power. Pick one. Ah, such is life.
eh, not necessarily. You could just be an avid student, genius or otherwise driven without being insane. And I'll keep saying that as far as Ranma was concerned the fights themselves weren't a negative for him. Just the drama around it.
"This is fair, I will be leaving now."
"Where too?"
Ranma asked.
"I can not go back to China the war is...rather ugly. I think I will wander the world."
tisk, pity. That collisium thing would have been awesome, and with him being stronger than them here, he'd be a good training aid.
by ki user standards Ranma's the boy next door
maybe in
this continuity.
"You know... my girl had cancer, terminal she was about 7 years old. There was no cure."
One hell of a checkov's gun. I was wondering when that Favor would come back around. Figured it was just going to remain background.
Hikaru is a student and you are a teacher. Going after a student is a breach of trust."
"I-"
"I heard exactly what you said woman, and I'm not going to allow it. Hikaru still has two years left of highschool, two. If you still have this obession after he graduates, I will allow you to chase him. I doubt you will end up catching him but I will allow it, but you will not violate this sacred trust, do you understand?"
Pity more don't think this way. LOTS of news articles about schoolboy's having to pay their teachers child support.
I grabbed some rice and some pickled vegetables, we're all sick of them but that's the only thing we can eat, due to a mixture of extreme poverty and a specialized ki training regiment. It sucks but thems the breaks.
Fascinating background.
I suppose with the communist regime hating them it'd be harder, but they should honestly be able to fix the poverty issue fairly easily. Pink and Link prove it's fairly easy to use chi to magic plants into anything you want, so infinite building materials and food are just one scholar away. Modern luxeries are a bit harder, being in rural china, parituclarly in the 80's before they finally gave up and allowed limited capitalism, but Umisenken was invented by a widely acclaimed idiot, so again, one scholar away.
Never mind that I opened up China, never mind that I fought to get those ingrates free healthcare, never mind that I got them out of 'Nam.
The first and third, sure, but the second was a massive mistake that's literally bankrupting the country. The third is one you should have used real military force on and damn the democrats/hollywood's meddling.
"Yeah, but the Soviets gave us Vietnam, it's only fair that we give them China."
uh... no offense to the vietnamese, but that's not a fair trade in the slightest.
I suppose this means the Vietnam war was WON rather than being a full blown retreat in this timeline?
Why would it be moral to play world police, and expand the scope of the conflict?
Because america, through Alger Hiss and Gen McArthur, are responcible for Mao winning and the now Taiwanese then chinese imperials losing.
Though, I suppose if the american communists hadn't pushed china over the cliff, they'd have become the world hegemon decades ago through sheer critical mass and Japanese would still have the same connotation as Nazi.
It's all a mess.
the poles can summon an army of ghostly wingged hussars,
"Magic isn't a toy?"
He nodded.
"That's one of them, the other one is this, don't twist the knife. If you have an enemy don't go with some big bombastic end for him, don't curse his kids, you either move on or you end it quick. Also you sometimes have a duty to tell the government no, to tell them you will not do an action."
He pointed to the city.
"This is the price of spitefullness, of mindless obediance to authority."
A good lesson.
And a
morbidly hilarious tale.
"No idea but I like the word, so I keep ordering it, it's honestly the same reason I order Chimichangas, it's an inherently fun word."
Deadpool approves!
"Nah Moe was a chill dude but after he died his fan boys screwed it all up, got like so wrapped up in the word that they forgot the message."
Dude needs to stop smoking and read his Koran. Moe was
not a chill dude. Not after he got kicked out of Medina. After he took over Mecca, he got
NASTY. Between what is said in the Koran, Hadith's and Surra's about the difference between the two periods... yeouch. It's like day and night. Dude was a SERIOUSLY sore loser.
"Egypt was it's own thing, point is if you're looking for the brightest light in the middle east, it's their magic community. They honestly believe in tolerance, racial, religious, and even sexual. They have had democratic governnance since the days of Mohammed, and they have completely given up on ever improving the middle east."
That's kinda hilarious, for all sorts of reasons. Good flavor background.
As for improving that shithole... If they could take command of the ley lines and turn them towards fixing the water cycle, that'd go a long way. The middle east used to be the american mid west in terms of biome, but you can watch it die as you read the bible. Recent ecological studies say that the "sand" there is mostly a fairly fertile dust... mixed with a deadly amount of salt. So, if they could get regular light rains to seal the dust to the ground and wash out the salt, their land could revive itself in fairly short order. Perhaps a decade at the worst. The increase in food and decrease in sand and heat would do wonders to calming the region. After that, it would be a mater of stopping mass inbreeding, using recent medical advances to comb out genetic diseases and that would pretty much take care of all of their problems.
Rasheed is a muslum and holds an idealized view of the profit, as do a lot of middle eastern magi. Like a lot of religious people he picks and chooses what to belive in its just that he focuses on charity, kindness, and tolerance.
Personal experience with alot of muslims, they don't pick and choose that much. They just believe his sand pirate phase was something to aspire to and that the Caliphate should mount the world.
"I'm just trying to protect you."
Mom was always a bad liar.
Both can be true.
"Where are you going?"
"To Ranma's place."
So now the question is, was that planned in their numbers? Or is Hikaru's being rebellious a surprise?
This would be much easier if Hikaru could teleport.
BTW, there's an airport just 30 miles south of where Jusenkyo is supposed to be.
I wonder how they fared with the nuclear strike? Are Jusenkyo and Jusendo still intact or did the nuke make things worse?
so far the only nuke has been Russia hitting beijing.
Kinda surprising she's so responcible.
"No... these are the affairs of wizards mother, you might be my mother, but I will do this."
Well, that's one way to rebel... These sorts of reactions usually end with someone dead, lots of hangovers and strange debts.
god you're learning how to make a port key."
eeeeexceleeent....
"Soun Tendo is dead... sucide whatever you guys have planned, put it off ok?"
He's still got 2 daughters and a lifetime friend. Dying any number of ways is one thing, but suicide is just selfish. It's not Edo anymore, dude.
Probably could actually. You've got Fate magic, which does it fairly regularly, Water bending which you've used to great effect, Naruto Chakra which has done it several times and Harry Potter magic which has a few methods.
Waterbend to heal the damage he's done to himself, use your want to defibrillate his heart until he's medically alive, then use Fate magic to restore the brain damage of the time it took you to get there.
Kind of reminds me of this comic:
Gone with the Blastwave
thx, that was hilarious.
I look at the boy, she loved him more then anything, if you want to hurt someone you find what they love, what they want, what they desire and then you take it away. I start the training trip. The boy will of course be made strong, after all he is my son but this trip will never end, she will never see him again.
This is a long con, the man is a cook, he has a daughter and his competitors want him out of business. You see the surrounding restaurants are losing business to him.
Probably the only believable parts of the interlude.
This was all kinds of awesome. Totally made up for the Genma post. I assume Conrad is your next student? Or is he a previous one?
We stepped off the boat, from now on we would be forced to travel on foot, there simply wasn't enough condensed moisture to continue hiding it. Ranma looked at it sadly and destroyed it with a ki attack.
You could fly it 20 feet above the ground the whole way...
"So what brings you to Jungle village?"
....This isn't the Musk is it?
Training in martial arts takes a lot of time.
Not if you're Ranma. One demonstration of Umi and Yama Senken and he copied it all.
A woman in a fox costume licked her lips hungrily.
"He's taken."
Dang... Kitsune are awesome.
Ranma flipped a coin, he shook his head.
"Well, let's get her back."
.............roflmfao. FLipping a coin over whether to bother rescuing Akane. That's great... Only thing that'll make it funnier is if she ends up being cursed anyway.
Professor Macguffin, well he vanished when his ten years were up, he communicates with his son by magic mirror when he can.
Wait, what? I thought he couldn't have kids? I suppose Japan's spiderweb pulled off so me shinto magic bullshit?
North Korea collapsed next and the south conquered it, their pretty strong these days and have taken some former Chinese provinces with a high number of ethnic Koreans. The UN stopped them from grabbing more.
Oooh, that's good. Kinda wish that'd happen IRL.
The twilight world the world of magi, martial artists and other stuff?
We thought we were going to die out, thought we were going back into the dust bin of history, but national survival has a way of changing things. We were the only one having kids, so the government decided to make it mandatory for people to learn the way of ki. It started in the rural areas, and well it worked the birth rate stopped declining so more small towns opted into it.
We are 50% of the population now and it looks like we are going to be the majority soon.
We survived by empowering the people maybe just maybe there is a lesson in that.
An excellent end to the story.
who eventually retires to Westeros.
Mass Effect.
