Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Medical Inquiries by Dr. Tofu ❯ Prologue

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Prologue: The Inception of Ashigaru

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This will explain the story behind Ranma's mysterious symbol, but no more. I will finish posting tomorrow and from there continue with Ranma's adventures; not a flashback but his actual adventures. After I finish his adventures I will pick up where I left off in the clinic, etc. Ranma will remain a girl in the post adventures.

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One

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.

The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.

The name is the mother of ten thousand things.

Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.

Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.

These two spring from the same source but differ in name;

This appears as darkness.

Darkness within darkness.

The gate to all mystery.

-Laotsu Tao Te Ching

This is the legend of the defeat of The Great Kuniyoshi Kaijuu Shogun by Chosokabe…A tale passed down generation from generation-somewhat forgotten in the intervening mists of time as the years blur into centuries and senile men forget their stories and then they lie quiet in watery graves-their words lost in the gentle breeze, scattered silently into the careening echo of salient memory; a fading record of what was. But, I still remember when the earth was still young, when the stars were formed; a brilliant cluster that seemed torival Amaterasu's golden light.

I'll tell you a tale of long ago, beyond the snow-capped Mountains of Mt. Tajima, which stretches with altitudinous summits traversing wearily alongthe Iyo River.

It was feudal Japan, the Muromachi period of 1521 to 1573, this is a tale of change. There was nothing in the universe but unyielding listless matter you see.

It was amorphous and unstructured and stretched into perpetuity. All was disordered. Heaven and Earth were fused like the white yolk of an egg that had been stirred through countless ages.

Man later created order and finally the three main branches were formed; the Minamoto that were allied with a contingent of warrior monks from Mii-dera near Kyoto, the Kiyomori which would later on produce the abomination of `The Great Kuniyoshi Kaijuu', and lastly the peaceful Taira that ruled with a controlled hand- staying rebellions before they were started and trying to avoid bloodshed by compromising with other indigenous tribes.

These three were the first Shoguns in Japan and they ruled it for over 7,000 years unchallenged, their bonds a strong united front against foreigners, but inside Japan they prospered. Japan had grown in stature; with beautiful Shinto temples that towered gracefully over the countryside, its peoples had become tightly structured into a specific set of codes named Ching. Ching was a way of life and people prayed to the gods and goddesses hoping for better crops or rain that year. Such was life, and so it had been for as far back as they remembered. That was fine with me I didn't correct them. There was no need.

So it happened that those three Shoguns grew and flourished, their lands broadening and stretching-until it could no more. And then the battles started.

Wave after wave of attack against ancient sworn allies. All forgotten in the greed that took, in the blood that was let, in the fever that shook men as they gazed with lustful eyes at other men's treasures.

As they treacherously bided their time before the onslaught. And so it was that the Kiyomori tribe rebelled, claiming that the lands of the Taira tribes were better used under Kiyomori's control because Taira knew not how to protect the lands of their sacred ancestors. So they fought and battled, as is the way of man. Someone lost and someone won.

Taira regained control of his lands and slew his once friend. He did not massacre the rest of the family because he viewed them as innocents, and in the end this would be the reason for his fall, and the succession of Chosokabe, his younger brother.

His curious younger brother that went perambulating one beautiful spring morning with nothing more but some orange monk robes, penniless and faux-naïf. He did not return from his itinerary until he was well beyond 40 summers old, with graven lines etched into the creases of his eyes, and a Zen like poise unlike before.

He had felt a calling to see truth unadorned and to strip away the layers of wealth which withheld him from the ultimate truth of his soul. So he packed up and left and tried to find the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path leading to the cessation of suffering. The four noble truths that Buddha had talked about in his sermons; dukkha, samudaya, nirodha, and marga.

So Chosokabe too discarded the pretensions of wealth and went to greet the world.

First he saw a religious monk sitting by a tree, legs crossed and meditating. So he did this too while stopping at times to observe the people around him. He witnessed a womanravaged with disease, rot and die. He saw small children abandoned by their parents turn to stealing as a means of survival, he saw hardworking peasants wake up in the morning to labor at their fields and only depart after the last light had waned. He did not eat and fasted for 30 days, thinning out to skin and bones in an attempt to reach nirvana.

But he did not succeed. He saw this for thirty days, sitting beside the silent monk as they both sought nirvana. But they did not find release and in the end his stomach grumbled for food, and he soon gave up and left. Deciding that fasting accomplished nothing, and that the gaunt monk was no closer to reaching nirvana than the trash collector, or the laboring peasants.

He left again, this time in tattered robes that hung loosely from his sparse frame, and traveled ceaselessly until he reached a city and wandered around until he found a group of warrior monks that followed Confucius. He had been meditating by a tree when he heard a scream resound in the eerie stillness of the night. It was a young girl, and a man had not followed Buddha's teachings and had allowed the sin of lust to overtake him. This would bring bad karma in his next life, but he could change his action towards good if he helped her out, ameliorating his karma. He stopped the man, but did not hurt him, and then slowly bent to help the girl.

The next morning he found himself surrounded by a ferocious group of warriors with cryptic markings all over their bodies detailed in blue. They questioned him, and the girl explained the situation. Then they welcomed him into their group. He became a practitioner of Confucius and over the years they became close friends. He saw the brilliant sun crest over the horizon day in and day out, he watched the leaves change and fall but most of all pondered the act of being.

Until one day he realized that it didn't matter anymore. What was, was, and what will be, will be.

One cannot change the swirling currents of the ocean, nor a bird its call; it is better to allow oneself to be taken in by the current than to be crushed by its substantial waves.

And so Chosokabe learned the hidden meaning of being and reached the highest peak of enlightenment. He reached nirvana. He was different than the other monks, because unlike the ascetic Buddhists he did not deny himself the enjoyment of life. Life was to short to regret, and so he lived it to the fullest. Nor did the sacrificial act of death seem so alluringnow. He had come to treasure the beauty of life, and planned to enjoy the days he had left; neither regretting nor hating what he had or didn't have.

And he became a warrior. They taught him the honor of killing, the honor of living, the sweet caress of a female, the quiet of a dawning day, and the peace of being exactly what you are. They were not like the Buddhist monks shying away from the pleasures of life and purposely finding ways to submit themselves before their god and self. They agreed with a fellow Zen monk-Master Ikkyu- in that, “Follow the rule of celibacy blindly and you are not more than an ass. Break it and you are only human.” And while they were not celibate they did not go to brothels but take a companion, a wife.

So, the group traveled, never staying in one place long enough to remember it, but traveled with the shifting wind.

Until news reached Chosokabe that his brother had been killed and that a group of bandits from the Kiyomori had raided and killed his family.

And then the normally peaceful Chosokabe went into uncontrollable anger and sought to kill those that had betrayed his family and him. The One Hundred Years of War passed, and Japan was ravaged by this internal dissolution. There was no longer any peace, anything but all-consuming hatred and weariness. Brother fought brother, and father fought son in a never-ending bloodbath, which killed thousands of innocents. It came one day that Kiyomori had tired of this ceaseless battle and had enlisted the help of an Oni.

Onis are devils, often of giant size. This one was larger than most and had three dangerous black horns protruding from its forehead with garnet red eyes that watched angrily.

It came up to Chosokabe and asked him for his blood so that he could feast on him, before he went to slaughter his people. The Oni gave Chosokabe 7 days to prepare himself for his ultimate death, and said he would be back in time of the Blue Moon when tides were great. This meant that the Oni already had satisfied his hunger for the moment but that he would be back in time of his next cycle. For the Onis ate in terms of days, since the almighty Kami had seen fit to punish them for their cruel, and lecherous behavior.

In 753 they pillaged a whole city and raped all of its women-stealing them and chaining them until their deaths. For this, the rape of the Sabine women were they exacted castigation.

Chosokabe meditated for hours and hours, watching the calm sun set and then die in a blaze of glory before a solution struck him as he watched a little fire be consumed by an even greater fire off in the distance as peasants burnt the woods to cultivate the land for crops. That wasn't new, but the idea of using the same essence of form even stronger than the original one was.

Chosokabe set to work finding ways to manipulate his ambient, finding that he could control his surroundings with the energy coming from the earth itself. It was a powerful raw force, which had to be centered. He practiced day after day, away from his family when on the 5th day his companion came up to him and he discovered that the energy coming off her arousal was even greater than the energy from his directionless surroundings. Soon after for 2 days he practiced until he could correctly manipulate this raw force of energy intopowerful attacks; grappling the powerful storms of winds, or the pelting rains into jagged strikes, and finally lightening strikes. He performed his sutras until he had them down to perfection, never resting. And that is when he discovered ashigaru. When he meditated quietly and reached the deep calmness of nirvana he saw a way to combine the powerful energy from the environment and arousal into one single attack. An attack that centered on the rising Ki levels exhibited during battle.

And so he waited for the Oni to arrive. Patiently waiting on a stone, with his legs crossed in a meditative manner; watching the stars fall, the moon wane, and the birds trill their last song before dispersing.

The Oni had finally come, glinting somberly in the dawning light, unknown to the group of warrior monks.

Chosokabe awaited the Oni while the rest of the warrior monks spread out and readied themselves for Kiyomori's attack on the forefront with his legions of men.

They sharpened their katanas and practiced their budo fighting arts, when they saw the Oni- so they were no taken by surprise when the samurai warriors under Kiyomori's leadership came out of hiding and attacked.

Metal met metal as steel swords clashed in the drawing angst of battle; their faces grim, their breaths expectant as the sun soared above in a red haze and the battle droned on ferociously.

As for the Oni and Chosokabe, they were locked in a battle of wills.

Chosokabe was using the raw energy from the earth but he could not use ashigaru because the Oni was not aroused, and he was slowly bleeding away to death.

When Bishamon, the Guardian God of the North, secured his request by imbuing him with the powers of ashigaru, searing Chosokabe's forehead his sign of protection and leaving him to quell the Oni's lust with a power more raw and perverse than his. And so Chosokabe drew from his great reserves and banished the Oni into the denizens of hell from where he was wrought, never to be unleashed again. As for Kyomori and his legions of men; they were decimated by Chosokabe's group of warrior monks that had been initiated by Choskabe after his defeat of the Oni, to bear the magical powers of ashigaru and the mark of Bishamon, their protector. So they triumphed, and the Muromachi period again knew peace, and their group had developed into a sacred order of monks led by Harakutso Saotome.

Harakutsu Saotome was not satisfied with the mere use of katanas and the short sword Wakizashi. Instead he began to create a new art form that utilized a full range of body motion becoming proficient in defending himself just as skillfully with nothing but his two hands and feet. He established the Saotome School of martial arts in 1759 AD and soon after it was maintained by the continuing descendants after him. They were still part of the sacred cult of warrior monks all the way until 2300 AD when the ancient scrolls became nothing but a family heirloom passed down from generation, it meaning forgotten. Its voice lost in the silent passages of time. It had become a legacy without meaning, coated with dust, unread until a curious young boy named Happosai Saotome chanced upon it in his fathers study as he was exploring. And then, the world was never the same again…

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Credits:

I used several books to write this- to draw ideas-amongst them; Japanese Mythology by Juliet Piggot, a translation of Tao Te Ching by Gia-Fu Feng, The Book of the Samurai by Stephen Turner, What Life was Like Among Samurai and Shoguns by Life Books, Key Ideas of Buddhism by a company again, this time ty, Teach Yourself. I used them but in my story I fuse other things together so don't take this as reliable history! I have a sarcastic wit, so if you are a history buff you will catch some of my subtle allusions and ironies...and laugh at my intended puns. No, those names were not chosen by accident, and I did not confuse their meaning...so yeah. I mean THAT...hehe.

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Next time comes Happosai's perverted story- as a hentai myself I idolize him greatly- then Ranma's adventures to give you an idea of how he suffered in his journey and then finally we return to modern Tokyo with Dr. Tofu and Ranma stuck in girl form. From there it will develop as expected, or in correlation with my summary is what I mean.

----Dani.

When people talked about formatting I thought it was some ambiguous thing, not specifically double space. That was not an error by the computer, but something I did for the blind people that had asked me in another story for it like that but since you guys want this way-I can be lazy! Whoopee!

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[`Cause this thing is malfunctioning you get 2 in 1]

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Two

Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.

All can know good as good only because there is evil.

Therefore having and not having arise together.

Difficult and easy complement each other.

Long and short contrast each other;

High and low rest upon each other;

Voice and sound harmonize each other;

Front and back follow one another.

Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking.

The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease,

Creating, yet not possessing,

Working, yet not taking credit.

Work is done, then forgotten.

Therefore it lasts forever.

--Lao Tsu on the practice of Tao Te Ching.

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Happosai the Depraved …

So the once innocent boy grew to a be a perverted young man obsessed with the techniques mentioned in the old musty scrolls, and tried everything to make them activate.

But nothing worked. Years passed and he had no success. So he had to rely on his own methods to become a stronger martial artist without the secrets of ashigaru. His father had taught him the physical aspects of being a martial artist, but the ancient scrolls talked about something that greatly enhanced your Ki levels and it depended in part on arousal…this sounded to good for Happosai to pass up! He spent countless hours each day spying on the beautiful girls in the public baths, stealing their underwear for his precious collection,and glomping them when they were in his near vicinity. What if the scrolls could reveal away to change all of this `raw energy' as it called it into more powerful attacks?

He'd be the most powerful man on earth!

Happosai went in search of this ephemeral ashigaru, years passed and still he found nothing as he traversed the Nemian deserts and the icy cold of the Andes Mountains; searching furtively for a way to unlock the techniques described in the scroll that had held him so captivated before as they did now. But now he was an old man, with aches and groans stemming from his inelastic frame. Now he had partially rheumy eyes and knobby hands. Time had stolen his youth but before he died he was determined to discover the technique mentioned in the scroll-to activate ashigaru.

So Happosai became even more perverted and desperate, searching the world around for a way to unlock the secrets of the scrolls. One day he came upon a warrior monk in the lowlands of Taira who was sitting outside meditating quietly, his legs crossed peacefully, his simple orange robes calling him like a beacon to go and sit beside him on the ground.

They sat together in peaceful companionship for a while before Happosai finally took out the ancient scrolls and questioned another monk if he recognized the form described. He waited with bated breath in anticipation, like always, but since he had been disappointed so many times before there was also a sour bile building in his stomach from nerves.

From failing yet again.

From taking up a quest without answer.

For wasting so many years in the search of this fabled technique.

And so he sat, trembling slightly as he watched the monk sit impassively scanning his precious ancient scroll between his gnarled hands. His face withdrawn as always-revealing nothing. The sun seemed to beat without mercy against their faces as he waited, watching. A speculative look appeared on the monks face for a second before it flickered away and again returned to its stoic countenance. This raised the hope clawing in Happosai's gut, but he squashed it determinedly, looking instead directly at Japan's unfurling sun in all of its brilliance. It was an appropriate symbol for a proud people.

“Ah…” the warrior monk quietly murmured, shifting slightly on to his left side, while grasping the moth eaten scrolls tightly.

“This,” the monk said finally turning to look at him, “is the summation of ashigaru,” the monk placed his finger at a squiggly doodle that marked all of the individual scrolls, “is the symbol of Bishamon, the Guardian God of the North.”

Happosai raised his eyebrows confused, “A doodle?”

The monk glared angrily at Happosai before continuing.

“I deduce that you want me to explain to you why you can't get this technique to work, right?”

Happosai smiled lecherously feeling the warm tendrils of hope blossom in his heart for the first time in a long time. That is until he said the rest and knocked the wind out of him!

“How do you feel about becoming a Warrior Monk of the Order of Bishamon?” the kind monk asked smiling knowingly.

Happosai pretended to think, so as to not offend the monk, before saying, “I think I'll pass, I just want a way to gain Ki energy from being with my `pretties'!”

The monk looked confused about the last part of his commment but decided to let it go, before returning the scrolls to Happosai and going back to his meditation.

Happosai, ever so polite and considerate, poked him repeatedly until the monk looked up at him again, and said, “You were saying?”

The monk closed his eyes, saying, “I can not help you if you have no wish to become a warrior monk of Bishamon.”

Happosai glared angrily at the monk before lashing out at him and kicking him hard with a snap kick to his abdomen.

Or at least that is what he tried to do, but the monk easily evaded his attacks before he calmly replied, “Because that is what it says to do in the scrolls, and also you have answered a grand secret of this order.” The monk gave him all of his attention, before asking him, “Did you know that this belonged to Harakutsu Saotome?”

Happosai rolled his eyes exasperated, not seeing the big deal out of one of the members from his family tree. “So?”

The monk put the scrolls down and said, “You can never activate those scrolls because only the direct descendants from Harakutsu have the power to do that.”

Happosai jumped up and down bouncing with joy speaking animatedly about his `pretties' before he suddenly stopped and cried out, “No I can't!”

The monk raised dubious eyebrows not believing that the balding midget before him could be related to the statuesque image of Harakutsu which he had in his library. He decided to play along, to not upset the energetic ball before him, so he could get back to his mediation.

“Is that so?” he replied drolly, glancing around for an excuse to get away from the lunatic jumping up and down in agitation.

“Yes!” screamed the impassioned midget.

“The scrolls mention that they have to be initiated into the order of Bishamon, and that then the `body' techniques which I am assuming is referring to martial art techniques will harmonize with ashigaru naturally, so that it could be a three-pronged attack instead of the `raw energy from the earth and ardor' and that the favor of Bishamon shall appear on the disciples forehead, or below his heart depending on how the person was initiated.”

Happosai stopped his movement before stilling eerily before asking the tired monk a question.

“Do you think you could initiate me into your order?”

The monk nodded, before signaling for Happosai to follow him. He'd be rid of the midget soon enough.

Happosai entered an old crumbling temple and inside the archaic edifice he could detect drawings of Bishamon in various stances, smiling kindly at his followers.

The monk led him into an alcove before bidding him to sit down before him while he perused the scrolls some more taking out several ingredients for the initiation ceremony.

The monk then began chanting quietly, in deep deliberation, his eyes focused on Happosai's forehead as he gently swept his finger in an arc over and over his forehead with pulverized ochre. He then applied a final sutra and watched with amazed eyes as Happosai glowed with pure white light before it dimmed and right smack on his forehead he bore the honored Bishamon's mark. He was Harakutsu's direct descendant…indeed.

The monk soon feinted with too much rationalizations while Happosai awoke form his drugged stupor. He touched his forehead excitedly before wandering off and screaming, “Here I come my pretties!”

Happosai continued the legacy of his antecedents-in a somewhat more twisted light.

The world was never the same again...you'll see why later…and so the most perverted monk in all of Japan's singular history became powerful enough to push off the death of age and he took two disciples; Soun and Genma to look after the school he established, Musabetsu Kakuto Ryo karate, which meant “School of Indiscriminate Grappling” or better known in the West as the “Anything Goes Martial Arts”.

Happosai taught his students under rigorous situations…he would loot the undergarments of a multitude of females, getting caught in the process, and then run off and kindly leave the teeming gathering of rabid females for his disciples to take care of.

They had two options; learn to run away while dodging fast airborne missiles or to be trampled and caught in a culpable light while the angry females tried to beat some moral sense into them. As mentioned before, this was harsh training, one that would make a weaker man pale and tuck tail and run.

But not Soun and Genma.

They simply tried to murder their dear sensei under questionable circumstances after suffering from another attack by irate females and almost getting killed in the process.

Usually Genma and Soun would never dream of reblling-24/7 that is-but these were the dredges of apathy for them, so they had to take a stand to maintain the effronteries of masochistic honor, and on a clear day they went off in search of several boxes of wine for their dear sensei. Happosai became quite drunk and when he passed out from the wine that they brought him Soun and Genma trapped him inside a box with lit dynamite, threw the box in a cave, rolled a boulder over the entrance, and draped spirit wards over the boulder. They left in jocular a mood, thinking they were finally rid of the old annoying letch.

But no, he lived on, and returned to torment their lives using the `finger block' to avoid the earnest punches thrown at him by his students and the son of one of his students that had the misfortune of turning into a buxom girl when dashed with cold water. And this is where being the most powerful man alive saves you from being killed on an almost daily basis from one's erstwhile disciples. But not even the Happo Fire Burst can compare to the dimensions displayed by an errant Ranma, whom like Happosai went traipsing where he shouldn'thave and found something interesting while looking for his `bras'.

It should be mentioned that Ranma is a victim to Happosai's affections…and they are not of a paternal sort. For this reason it happened that while he sorted through Happosai's gargantuan collection of female undergarments in search of his own, he found something else entirely.

A scroll.

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Tomorrow I shall continue and do Ranma's adventures briefly and then start on what I really want to do…Dr. Tofu. Btw I mean with my keyboard, not in reference to doing the horizontal mamba with our good doctor underneath the sheets! I mean, honestly! My delicate puritanical views would be quite offended by such an unladylike thought. Precisely so.

--Dani.

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Credits:

I used Wikipedia for some background information on Happosai as well as AnimeInfo, and to look up his techniques and such.

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