Sailor Moon Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Happi's Redemption ❯ Meeting the Senshi ( Chapter 12 )

Happi's Redemption

A Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction

By Michael A. Ivins

 

Ranma along with all of his friends, enemies and acquaintances are the property of Takahashi Rumiko. I'm just borrowing them for my own amusement and hopefully that of my readers. Sailor Moon and the Senshi aren't mine either. Please don't sue me.

 

This story takes place after the end of the manga

 

Chapter 12

Meeting the Senshi

 

The next morning right after breakfast, Ranma headed over to Juuban. He roof hopped to save on train fare and for the exercise. When he was about a kilometer from the store he was distracted by the sound of explosions and crashing.

 

Since he had time to spare, he detoured in the direction of the disturbance. He finally came to a stop on the roof of a five story building and looked down on the scene of battle in the street.

 

The scene was one of total chaos. The first things that one noticed were the monsters. Giants, there were three of them each about 3 meters tall. They looked like they were assembled from a random assortment of boulders, rocks and pebbles into a roughly man-like shape with huge barrel chests and short arms and legs. Their heads were just round rocks with no faces. Ranma had to wonder how they could see to fight without eyes. They seemed to manage. They had no toes on their feet, making them look like big, clumsy shoes. On their hands they did have short, stubby fingers.

 

Fighting against them were girls dressed in what looked like cheerleader outfits complete with short skirts. The uniforms included what looked like a sailor flap on the back. That one feature made Ranma think that these must be the Sailor Senshi he had heard about. Akane was a fan of theirs and always followed all of the news stories about their battles.

 

The girls didn't seem to be doing too well. They were throwing some kind of energy attacks at the creatures. One was using lightning, another fire, the one with the orange skirt seemed to be throwing attacks composed of glowing hearts. The one with the blue hair was attacking with what looked like freezing water. He couldn't tell for sure what it was the blonde with the odangos and long ponytails was using other than it seemed like some kind of energy attack.

 

What he could tell was that the attacks that the girls were using didn't seem to do more than slow the rock monsters down. Their actions had occupied the monsters and allowed the civilians to escape. There were police in the area but they didn't appear to be well enough armed to handle the problem either. Likely for foes of this type it would take some kind of explosive rockets instead of just bullets. For the present all the police could do was to keep the gawkers out of the battle zone.

 

Hmm. The Breaking Point technique wasn't supposed to work on living creatures. He wondered if that would also apply to magically animated stone. Well, only one way to find out.

 

He leapt from his spot on the roof at an angle that would get him to one of the monsters. He was aiming at the chest. He used the Iron Skin technique to harden his index finger on his right hand to the consistency of a steel rod. His ki senses had found the needed weak point.

 

Fractions of a second later his finger stabbed into the chest of the stone monster and he called out, “Bukusai Tenketsu.” As the monster's chest exploded, Ranma bounded away to avoid the worst of the shrapnel. When Ranma landed he looked back at the creature. The upper portion of its torso was rubble. This is when it became apparent that the creatures really were assembled from random stones. Whatever magic had held the rocks in the manlike shape lost its grip and the rest of the creature fell apart.

 

The blonde with the long ponytails demanded, “Who are you?”

 

Ranma just shook his head and yelled back, “We can talk after these guys are taken care of.”

 

Conceding the wisdom of that, the girls went back to their attacks. When one of the rock monsters turned away from Ranma to face the girls, he leapt at its back. Unfortunately the one remaining monster was watching its companion's back. A stone hand came swinging into view and slapped Ranma away. The boy's flight was stopped when he slammed into the concrete wall of a building, leaving a Ranma-shaped indentation. While flying backward, Ranma was able to invoke Iron Skin over his whole body. Even with that protection it still hurt. "Ite." Ranma proclaimed.

 

Pushing himself out of the indentation, Ranma shook his head to clear the cobwebs and commented, “Damn, that thing hits harder than Ryoga.”

 

Apparently the monsters thought pigtailed boy was permanently removed from the battle because they were concentrating their attacks on the girls. Ranma snorted, “Ignore me, will you?” He launched himself forward again and this time reached the back of one of the monsters. With another well placed Breaking Point, the second monster exploded like the first.

 

After landing back on the ground near to where the girls were, Ranma yelled to be heard, “Ladies would you like to take the last one?”

 

The pony-tailed blonde called out, “All together!” With that instruction all of the girls struck with their attacks at the same time. That appeared to be too much for the monster and it too exploded under the combined attack.

 

As soon as the rock monster's remains fell, all of the girls turned toward Ranma. Sailor Moon asked, “How did you survive being slammed into the wall like that?”

 

“Oh, that,” he said offhandedly. “There's this martial arts ki manipulation technique called Iron Skin. You channel your ki into your skin to make it as tough as armor. Even using that technique I'm still going to be feeling that one later. I'm already channeling ki to heal myself.”

 

With a confused expression on her face, Sailor Venus asked, “What's ki?”

 

Sailor Mercury was scanning with her computer and had the holographic visor over her eyes. She said, “It is pure life energy. This man has tons of it. It's a good thing he wasn't around here when Beryl's youma were stealing energy. He'd be a prime target for them with all the energy he's got.”

 

The blonde with the pony tails stepped forward and bowed, saying, “I'm Sailor Moon and we are the beautiful sailor suited defenders of love and justice known as the Sailor Senshi.”

 

The pigtailed boy stood there blinking. They really called themselves that? He thought it was just some silly name made up by the newspapers to describe them. He shook himself out of his introspection and said, “Wow, it's great to meet you. My fiancé is one of your biggest fans.”

 

He looked over the girls and pointed at the other blonde. “So you would be Sailor Venus, right? I've played your video game - lots of fun. The one with the fire attacks must be Sailor Mars, the one with the computer is Sailor Mercury and the tall one would have to be Jupiter.”

 

Sailor Moon smiled. “That's right.”

 

Before she could ask his name he said, “But aren't there more of you?”

 

Moon nodded and said, “You mean the Outers. They got the emergency alert. They are probably on their way right now.”

 

“Wow, cool!” He pulled a notebook out of stuff space. This was the same notebook he had used to take notes when he had been at the library the previous day. “My fiancé would be really impressed if I could get your autographs.”

 

While the Senshi normally didn't give autographs, they didn't think it was too much to do to thank the man who had just helped them fight some really tough monsters. Moon took the notebook and Ranma told her, “Say `To my biggest fan, Akane.”

 

The pony-tailed blonde nodded and started to write. While she was doing that Jupiter asked, “What was that attack you used on the rock monsters?”

 

He explained, “It's called the Breaking Point. One uses ki senses to find the weakest point in a rock and pour ki into it. It causes the rock to explode. Since the attack doesn't work on living creatures I guess I was lucky that those things were magically animated stone and not really living.”

 

“Yeah, lucky…” Jupiter sounded confused.

 

Just then three more women jumped down from a nearby rooftop. One was a tall blonde with short hair, the second a pretty woman with aqua colored hair and the third was a younger looking girl with dark purple hair. The young one looked about the same age as Ranma's girl form. The youngest was carrying a really formidable looking pole-arm.

 

The short haired blonde said, “Sorry we're late. Who's this guy?”

 

At that moment Ranma's curse made an agreement with the local storm gods. The result was a sudden burst of rain that seemed to fall only on one person. The now wet redhead muttered, “The kami must hate me.”

 

Sailor Uranus shouted, “Everybody get back! It's a youma in disguise. World Shaking!”

 

Sailor Moon had been handing Ranma's notebook to Sailor Mars. She said, “Uranus, wait!”

 

Before her words could register, Neptune called out her attack, “Deep Submerge.”

 

After taking the full brunt of the World Shaking, Ranma rather shakily dodged the Deep Submerge attack. She shouted, “Damit, stop attacking me! I'm on your side!”

 

“Like I'm going to believe you!” The Senshi of Uranus launched another attack.

 

Ranma was starting to get pissed off. While dodging she muttered, “That damned uncute, macho tomboy better appreciate what I had to go through to get their autographs.”

 

While this was going on Mercury was trying to get the attention of the Outers to tell to tell them the girl had no dark energy and wasn't a threat.

 

Another attack grazed Ranma and she looked down at herself. She was getting a bit battered but her clothing was a tattered mass of rags that barely covered her enough to protect her modesty. Damn it! She had liked those clothes.

 

“Damn it! If you want a fight, I'll give you one.” A glowing ball of blue energy began to form and she shouted, “Moku…”

 

Before she could launch her attack a new voice fairly screamed, “STOP! Uranus, Neptune, stand down!” In view of the intervention, Ranma let the energy of her attack dissipate.

 

The new person to join the group was a strikingly beautiful tall woman with green hair. The skirt of her fuku was black.

 

Uranus protested, “But she…”

 

The green haired woman glared. “I said STAND DOWN! I won't have you attacking an ally.”

 

At that all of the Senshi responded, “Ally?”

 

The newcomer walked over to Ranma and produced a thermos seemingly from nowhere. As she handed the thermos to the redhead she said, “I apologize for my teammates' zeal. They sometimes err on the side of caution.”

 

Ranma opened the thermos and poured some hot water to turn male again. While doing it he was muttering, “Damn crazy, trigger happy magic girls.”

 

The Senshi of Time's manner was oddly respectful. “Are you injured, Saotome-San?”

Handing the thermos back to the green haired woman, he shrugged, “I've taken worse. A little ki channeling and I should be good as new. Uh… how do you know my name?”

 

She said, “I am the Senshi of Time.” She said it as if that explained everything.

Ranma digested that then ventured, “So you had knowledge from the future that we'd meet?”

 

She nodded. “That's right.”

 

He scowled. “If you knew this was going to happen couldn't you have got here before she attacked me?”

 

The green haired woman bowed her head. “I'm sorry. I tried to get here faster but I had to pick up the thermos and some other things.”

 

Again from nowhere she produced a couple of folded garments. She handed them to the startled young man. He looked at the tattered garments he was wearing and the clothing now in his hands. “You really did know this was going to happen.”

 

With Chestnut Fist speed he changed into the new garments. He found they were an excellent fit. The pants were black and had an elastic waistband. That would allow the pants to stay up if he got changed to female before he could get another outfit. The shirt was what he'd heard referred to as a “scrub shirt” such as doctors wore when on duty in a hospital. It was a light green in color and stitched on the front in dark blue was a caduceus, the symbol of a doctor.

 

He looked at the stitching on the shirt and said, “I haven't earned the right to wear this symbol.”

 

The woman in the black-skirted fuku patted his shoulder, “Don't worry, you will.”

 

The Senshi of Time turned from Ranma and said, “You finish signing that notebook. I know Saotome-San's fiancé will treasure it.”

 

Not having noted the name before, Uranus and Jupiter now stepped forward. The blonde said, “Did she say Saotome, as in Saotome Ranma from Nerima?”

 

The pigtailed boy had learned to be cautious when people asked about his name in that way. For all he knew this might be another fiancé. Still, he wasn't going to lie. “Uh…Yeah, that's me.”

 

“Oh, wow! I'm so sorry I attacked you,” the blonde said. Her earlier hostility seemed completely gone now. “Still, I should have expected Saotome Ranma to be able to take my attack and keep going. You're like one of my biggest heroes. You're famous. It's like you're the greatest martial artist in Japan.”

 

Sailor Jupiter similarly gushed, “I've heard of you too. Your exploits are amazing. The way you fought that flying monster was great.”

 

“Uh… Thanks.” He guessed the monster she was talking about was Pantyhose Taro.

 

By the time the notebook was signed by the last of the Senshi, Ranma was beginning to wonder if the two martial arts otaku were going to ask for his autograph in return.

 

Finally he took back the notebook and stashed it in stuff space. He said, “Well it's been… interesting meeting you. I'm willing to overlook the attack as a misunderstanding.” He turned and leapt to the roof of a nearby building and proceeded to roof hop toward the bookstore.

 

Usagi stalked over to Pluto and demanded, “What's the deal? I can understand Uranus and Jupiter acting like that around a famous martial artist, but why were you acting so respectful to him? Did your future self tell you something about him?”

 

Setsuna nodded. “Yes, she did. In fact a future version of Saotome-San was with her at the time. He may be a martial artist now, but he will soon begin the formal study of medicine. He has already started to study it informally.”

 

Sailor Moon nodded. “Okay, he's going to be a doctor, I get that. Why would he be with your future self?”

 

The Senshi of Time rolled her eyes. “He's not just any doctor, he's our doctor (or will be.) During his studies he will gain enormous medical knowledge but even greater healing powers both ki base and magical. He will save the lives of each of each of us many times over. If that's not enough for you, he is the reincarnation of Queen Serenity's doctor from the Silver Millennium. In that lifetime he delivered Princess Serenity (you.) He will be the doctor who delivers Chibi Usa.”

 

“Oh” The Moon Princess wasn't sure how to react to that. Finally she commented, “But he's still just a kid.”

 

The Senshi of Pluto smiled at that. “So he is. And so are you too. The thing about kids is that they don't stay that way forever. You have grown up a lot since you took on the responsibilities of Sailor Moon. The life that Saotome Ranma has lived has given him experiences that most people two or three times his age haven't accumulated.”

 

The Moon Princess glanced in the direction the young man had gone. “Then I wish we'd had more time to talk to him. You make him sound like an interesting person. What I don't understand is why magical girls with healing powers would even need a doctor.”

 

Pluto seemed amused as she explained, "Putting it in common terms you could think of healing power such as Saturn's as your basic first aid kit. When he completes his education and refines his healing powers, Saotome-San's healing power would be more like a fully equipped research hospital."

 

"He's going to get that good?"

 

The Guardian of the Gates of Time nodded and said, “Don't worry. You'll meet him again.” Before Usagi had a chance to ask any more questions, Setsuna disappeared, teleported away.

 

 

 

A kilometer away Ranma landed in the street in front of a store with a sign that said, “The Spell Book,” in stylized Romanji. Below that was the picture of a huge open book with burning candles to the left and right.

 

When he pushed open the door, a bell rang. A young woman standing behind a cash register near the door straightened up and looked like she was ready to step forward to tend to the new customer.

 

A voice called out, “I'll take this one, Akemi.”

 

From the direction of the voice there came a woman who appeared to be in her 50's. She had very erect posture and had hair that was more gray than brown. She wore glasses with half-moon lenses that rested nearly at the end of her nose. The eyes revealed were brown and bore an inquisitive expression.

 

The woman said, “How may I help you, young man?”

 

From stuff space Ranma pulled out a list. From the pages of book titles that Dr. Rinse had given him he had copied the titles that she said would likely have to come from a store specializing in books on the occult. He handed the list to the lady he assumed to be the owner of the store.

 

The older woman looked over the paper. “Quite a list. I see `Rivers of Light, Rivers of Life' by Nakasone, `Medicinal Plants of Asia' by Howard Swan, `Healing Powers' by Xeltraphon. You are looking for books on ki healing, herbal medicine and magic healing? It would appear that someone wishes to become a somewhat unconventional doctor.”

 

Ranma nodded. “I recently helped out in a medical clinic for a couple weeks. In addition to some more modern medical books, those were recommended to me by a Dr. Rin Se.”

 

The book store owner considered that name. “This doctor friend of yours wouldn't happen to be a Chinese Amazon, would she?”

 

The pigtailed martial artist nodded. “She lives in village in Qinghai province.”

 

The bookstore owner looked over the list again. “I see. I know some people in that part of the world. We have most of these books. Two of them I'll have to order. Two of them are out of print and might be difficult to obtain. You might try looking them up on the Internet. That way you would likely be able to get them as fast as I could.”

 

She took a pencil and checked those titles then handed the list back to Ranma. “If you will forgive me for being nosey, I can detect the presence of magic on you. Some of it is recent and some has been with you for a while.”

 

The black haired boy raised an eyebrow. After considering for a moment he said, “The recent magic came from a misunderstanding with the Sailor Senshi about a kilometer from here. They mistook me for an enemy and tried to hit me with some of their magic attacks.”

 

The graying storekeeper's eyebrows went up. She asked, “Did they hit you?”

 

“Just once,” Ranma reported. “The rest of them I dodged. They apologized when they realized I was one of the good guys.”

 

“I should think so too,” She said. “You don't seem too badly injured.”

 

“Nah, I'm pretty tough,” he replied. “It sort of wrecked my clothes though. They were nice enough to give me something else to wear.”

 

She nodded sagely. “That would account for the scent of magic on your clothing.”

 

He frowned, looking confused. “Magic has a smell?”

 

“To an experienced magic user it does,” She explained.

 

“Ah! I see,” he responded. “I did have a reason to come visit you here besides the books. Since I needed the books anyway I thought I would ask about them too. You know, `two birds with one stone,' and that kind of thing.”

 

“I suspected as much.” The woman smiled.

 

He said, “The Matriarch of the Amazon tribe in that same village where the doctor lives said I should look up a sorceress who lives in Juuban. She didn't have an address but a friend of mine looked you up from your name. The Matriarch's name is Lo Shen.”

 

“Oh, my!” The older woman exclaimed. “I haven't heard from little Lo Shen for a very long time.”

 

“'Little' Lo Shen?” That didn't seem like a name that should be applied to a woman who was more than a century old.

 

The shopkeeper laughed. “I'm older than I look. I've known Lo Shen since she was a little girl.”

 

She glanced over to the woman behind the cash register and said, “Akemi, mind the store for a while. It turns out that this is a special customer. I'm going to take him back to the workshop.”

 

The younger woman nodded and waved. The shopkeeper headed toward the back of the store, instructing, “Follow me.”

 

As they threaded their way between bookcases Ranma asked, “Don't you want to know what Lo Shen sent me to you for?”

 

“No,” answered the old woman. “I like to figure this sort of thing out myself when it's a magic problem.”

 

Ranma shrugged. If that was how she wanted to play it.

 

They finally got to the back of the shop space and went out a door into a hallway. They went down the hall to the end, passing some other doors on the way. The woman pulled a chain from around her neck to reveal a key that hung from it. She used that key to unlock the door at the end of the hall.

 

The room was spacious and in the middle was a table about the size of a dining table for eight people. The chairs were comfortable overstuffed ones rather than the usual ones you'd see as part of a dinette set. Along one wall there was an odd piece of built-in furniture. It was a sort of cabinet with dozens of drawers.

 

The sorceress waved toward the table and said, “Have a seat.” She moved along the wall until she seemed to find the drawer she was looking for. She pulled the drawer open and withdrew what looked like a piece of costume jewelry. It was a gem about the size of the end of Ranma's thumb.

 

The woman handed the jewel to Ranma and said, “Here, hold this.”

 

The martial artist took the gem in his hand. The moment it touched the palm of his hand, the jewel began to glow with a bright blue light. Seeing that that, the sorceress said, “Aha! Jusenkyo, just as I thought.”

 

Ranma rolled his eyes. “All you had to do was ask me.”

 

She pointed out, “If you had told me there is the chance you could have lied or been mistaken about the nature of the magic that was worked on you. This way I'm sure.”

 

The boy shrugged. Apparently she had her own way of doing things.

 

From the same drawer she pulled a round leather case. The leather looked old and weathered. From the case the old woman pulled a lens. She held this up and peered at Ranma through the glass. She seemed to be studying the teen carefully.

 

After a while she finally said, “Spring of Drowned Young Girl. From what I can see here your cursed form is a really cute redhead of about 13 years in age. To tell the truth I've never heard of a girl coming out of that spring that wasn't at least cute and a few that grew into absolutely gorgeous women.”

 

Ranma frowned. “I can't say I'm thrilled about that.”

 

The sorceress looked amused. “If you have to change into woman wouldn't you prefer to change into a pretty one?”

 

He gave her a level look. “If I turned into a plain or ugly girl I wouldn't have to put up with so many perverted boys trying to date me.”

 

She nodded. “Since you're a boy inside, I can understand how you wouldn't find that a pleasant experience.”

 

The boy shook his head emphatically.

 

The sorceress frowned. “Other than getting books, what did you hope to get out of this visit to my shop?”

 

He leaned back in his chair. “Lo Shen told me that she knew of a sorceress who could do magic that would let someone with the girl curse change the trigger from water to will power.”

 

The woman nodded. “Yes I do know such magic. Did Lo Shen tell you some of the limitations and conditions?”

Ranma's expression was serious now. “Yes. I need to pick times to be a girl and I need to spend half or more of my time in girl form or I could find myself changing without willing it any time my mind wanders. At least by changing the trigger I get rid of the whole water magnet thing.”

 

Ms. Watanabe nodded with evident satisfaction. “A very succinct summation, I must say. I noticed that your girl form looks to be about 13 while your boy form looks 16. If you want your female form to catch up to your male form you would need to spend extra time as a girl. Products like the waterproof soap won't work when water is no longer your trigger.”

 

The boy nodded. “I guess that's why Lo Shen said I should keep this.” He pulled the locking ring from under his shirt.

 

The sorceress studied the ring for a moment. “Oh, a Joketsuzoku locking ring. It's been a while since I've seen one of those. That would work. While you wear it, the ring would keep you female regardless of whether your trigger is water or will power.”

 

Ranma looked thoughtful. “This goes beyond my original reason for coming here, but I wanted to ask. Is there some way that my clothes can change when I do?”

 

The sorceress frowned as she considered. Finally she said, “There is a way, but to do it you would need to learn the magic yourself. There is no talisman, charm or other magical object that can do it, at least not that I have access to. In effect it is a short-range teleport. I could see that you already have one of the requirements. You know the Hidden Weapons technique, right?”

 

The young man grinned. “It's such a useful technique.”

 

She nodded. “It lets you carry more than you could hold in your arms. You can also carry more weight in your subspace pocket than your muscles will support. I'll bet physicists would love to study the phenomenon.”

 

She paused. "The magic I have in mind would let you exchange an outfit you are wearing with one you are carrying in your hidden pocket.”

 

Ranma interjected, “I call it stuff space.”

 

The sorceress perked up at that. “Oh, right! You call it that because you keep stuff in it. I like it. Once you master the spell, you could change clothes anytime you will the sex change. The one advantage I could see is that you wouldn't have to wear clothing that was too large for your female body.”

 

“Is it hard to learn?”

 

Ms. Watanabe shrugged. “That depends on the student. It's easy for some, hard for others. I suspect that if you've already mastered the Hidden Weapons technique you should learn the clothing swap without too much trouble.”

 

He nodded. “I'd like to try. How much will I owe you for that?”

She shook her head. “The store out front is what I do to pay the bills. For the magic, all I ask is that you pay for the materials that I use.” She pulled a piece of paper out of a drawer and jotted a few things down with a pencil. When she was done she took a calculator and added up the figures. She showed Ranma the total.

 

It wasn't bad. He had feared that it would be terribly expensive. He said, “That isn't bad. I wanted to mention something else.” He described Ms. Hinako's condition.

 

The sorceress frowned. “The spell to change your trigger I could perform in a few minutes. I have all the materials on hand and I know the spell. For the clothing swap you would need to come here for lessons. I'd estimate an hour a day, probably no less than one to two weeks. If you haven't learned it in two months you should probably give up.”

 

With some further thought, she said, “For the lady with the ki problem, I don't know. I'll have to research it. How did she get that way?”

 

Ranma gave a condensed version of the story. The sorceress asked, “What was the name of the man who taught her this technique?”

 

“Happosai.”

 

Ms. Watanabe frowned. “I haven't seen Happi in a long time. Did he ever find the magic he was looking for?

 

The pigtailed boy nodded. “Yes he did, but it was almost too late. He nearly died and I had to feed him ki to keep him alive. `He' is now a gorgeous 19 year old blonde girl.”

 

The sorceress laughed. "I know he told me he was born a girl, but since I never saw him that way, I have a hard time imagining it.”

 

The young martial artist nodded. “I had a hard time accepting it at first. Being a girl has made such a difference in her behavior. From talking to her I can tell she remembers being the old pervert, she just doesn't want to be like that anymore. He used to be a royal pain in the butt. Now she's a friend and I'm glad to have her as one.”

 

The older woman listened to the tone the boy used. She was sure that what the boy felt for the transformed former ancient pervert was more than just friendship. She was equally sure that the boy wasn't aware of the exact nature of what it was he was feeling.

 

They would certainly make an odd couple, the sex changing boy and the girl who used to be a man. She had to wonder what the girl felt about the boy. If the boy was going to be coming in for lessons on how to do the clothing swap spell, Ms. Watanabe would monitor how things went. It would be nice to talk to this Noriko.

 

Ms. Watanabe began to pull things out of drawers and line them up on the table. After she had things laid out she grabbed a notebook from a shelf. The book looked like a business journal. She explained, “I created this spell myself. I need to check to make sure I've got all the ingredients.”

 

She checked the assembled materials on the table against the list in the book. She gave a satisfied nod. From the table she picked up a piece of chalk and took it over to a clear section of floor. There she moved a few items out of the way and started to draw a design. At times she would change colors of chalk. She explained that the chalk was enchanted.

 

After the multicolored design was completed, the sorceress began placing talismans in spots that had been left blank. When she completed positioning those she put an amulet on a chain over her head. She pointed and said, “I left a path through the design. Follow the path to the center.”

 

Looking very nervous, the boy did as bid and soon was standing in the center of the pattern. The sorceress took more chalk and filled the gaps in the design. When she finished that she placed the chalks back on the table and picked up a sort of staff that had a carving that looked like a ram's head on one end and a woman's head on the other.

 

“Are you ready?” Ms. Watanabe asked?

 

Still looking apprehensive, Ranma replied, “Would it make any difference if I said no?”

 

She laughed. “No difference. We're committed now. You have to stay where you are and not smudge any of the lines, it could create problems. I should mention that this design is more elaborate than is really needed to do the job. Over time I added safeguards so now there's no chance of this going wrong.”

 

He nodded. “Forgive me if I feel nervous. All the magic I've experienced has never been good for me.”

 

She recommended, “Relax. All you should feel is a tingle, the same as you do when you change forms.”

 

Author's Note: I couldn't have Ranma visit Juuban and not have an encounter with the Senshi. This is not a fukufic and Ranma won't become a Senshi as part of it. I hope I adequately explained why the Senshi might need a doctor. The Senshi will not play a major part in this story.

 

Ranma's not sure if he's ready to have his curse trigger changed even if it is something he wanted. To see how that goes for him, check out the next chapter when I post it.