by gsteemso » Fri Dec 05, 2008 12:46 am
Second revised version, posted overtop of first revision. Thanks to all who contributed suggestions, especially Yarrow.
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A Game Is Fine Too
A Somewhat Citrus-Flavoured Ranma ½ Fan Fiction by gsteemso
Prologue
Not my characters. Ranma ½ belongs to Takahashi Rumiko.
Author’s Note (♄ 2008/07/05): Despite appearances, Ranma will not actually be paired, in the romantic sense, with anyone male in this fic. However, s/he is uniquely qualified to, shall we say, enjoy life to its fullest. Given a suitable nudge, why not?
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Sixteen-year-old Saotome Ranma, looking somewhat dishevelled, paused to recover his breath atop a small convenience store. In the street before him, his most evenly matched sparring partner — one Hibiki Ryoga — was sitting up with a wince from the crater he’d just made in the asphalt. Unexpectedly, considering Ryoga’s almost supernaturally flawed sense of direction, he was looking straight at Ranma.
Ryoga scratched his head and stood up with a rueful grin. “Guess I should have practised that one a bit more before trying it on you, huh?”
Ranma hopped down to sidewalk level. “Well, I think it might have actually gotten me if your sandal strap hadn’t come undone and tangled up your feet,” he said generously. The two boys had been engaged in a running martial arts battle across most of the suburb, which was nothing unusual for them. What was unusual — indeed, unprecedented — was that they hadn’t had their match cut short by anything, and had actually succeeded in tiring one another out through natural attrition. Normally Ryoga would get hopelessly lost only a few minutes after the fight began, or else the battle would be coöpted by some other martially obsessed lunatic.
The magnitude of the boys’ achievement in wearing one another to a frazzle is difficult to convey — both boys were world-calibre martial artists in the prime of youth. When rested either would, for example, be capable of swimming across the Sea of Japan unaided were it not for the complications caused by their Jusenkyo curses, which caused them to assume an unnatural shape when doused with cold water — a small black piglet for Ryoga, and a female version of himself for Ranma.
In any case, the improbable event had taken place, and the two boys were in such a mellow mood after beating on one another uninterrupted for the better part of three hours that they were feeling unwontedly well-disposed to one another. All of the petty stresses that normally caused them to think ill of one another had faded temporarily to the background.
“Man, that was a good fight,” Ranma said expansively as the two turned to start walking back to the Furinkan district, where Ranma was staying with the Tendo family. Behind them, unnoticed, the owner of the convenience store flipped them the bird and glared at the Ranma-shaped hole through his shop’s rooftop sign.
“You said it, buddy,” agreed Ryoga. He was about to continue with the observation that some food and drink would be a good idea, when he narrowly escaped being splashed by a bucket of cold water that had been upended on Ranma.
“Hey!” the now-girl protested, looking up for her assailant. She didn’t have to look far; the supremely unwelcome little form of Happosai, her martial arts school’s perverted grandmaster, was plummeting on a direct course from the rooftops to her bosom, holding out a lacy set of lingerie that he was obviously intent on getting her into. “Gah! You little creep!” Tired though she was, she was still on an adrenaline high from the fight and easily nailed the old lech between the eyes with a textbook-perfect punch, bouncing him off the brick wall beside them.
“Ow! Is that any way to treat someone who brings you a present?” snarled the pervert, waving the lingerie indignantly.
“In your case, YES,” growled the dripping redhead. They weren’t the only annoyed ones present, though, as they were abruptly reminded.
Ryoga was not at all pleased at his narrow dodging of pig-hood from the old man’s carelessly thrown bucket — he did still have his battle umbrella with him, but it was furled at the moment. “You old freak!” he growled, snatching the lacy edge of the bra before Happosai could react, and swinging him around. “Try THIS on!” With an invisible flare of directed chi, the lingerie suddenly stretched, bouncing Happosai off the brickwork again as the pair of combatants rotated. Ranma, also taken by surprise, barely dodged them.
“Wha—?” managed Happosai, just before he was rudely interrupted at the bottom end of his orbit by the underwear suddenly snapping back into shape with a loud crack. The laws of physics obligingly resumed operation after Ryoga’s prized new Rubber Cloth technique ended, propelling the startled grandmaster at high speed by air delivery into the next ward eastwards. A flock of birds took flight in alarm as the screaming projectile sped past a big tree a few streets over.
Ryoga’s triumphant pose — not, alas, a thing he got to use very often — was cut tragically short by his other sandal strap unfurling itself from his leg and tying his feet together, causing him to topple over sideways.
“Huh. That happened last time too. Wonder what you’re doing wrong?” observed Ranma, helping Ryoga up. A passing little old lady crossed the street to avoid them.
“Darned if I know. Must be something to do with the opponent’s chi; it never did that when I was practising.”
“Some sort of chi-echo effect… Hmmm,” mused Ranma.
“Meh, I’ll figure it out later,” decided Ryoga. “For now, I think I could do with a cold one and some food.”
“Huh? A cold one of what?”
“Don’t care as long as it’s cold.”
Ranma laughed. She was about to agree with him, when her gaze fell on the establishment immediately behind the Lost Boy. “Huh. How ’bout this place?” she asked, pointing.
“Ichiro’s All-You-Can-Eat? Wow, I never even knew that was there.” The two went in and waited patiently to be seated.
The proprietor looked askance at their age, and surreptitiously compared their faces to the standard “Bingo Sheet” distributed every few months by the Nerima Merchants’ Association. He paled as he realized just who had walked in, and tried not to look apprehensive. According to the rather lengthy footnote, the girl seemed especially destructive during her infrequent dates, but the damage could sometimes be averted by hiding the couple out of view of passersby in the street, as well as refusing to admit any troublemakers who appeared to be following her.
“Right this way!” he urged them, with a disturbingly artificial smile. He seated them in a cosy candlelit booth right at the back — which suited the “couple” just fine; no sense risking a crazy challenger noticing them when they were trying to unwind, after all — and brought them some complimentary iced tea with their menus, before retiring with unseemly haste.
Ranma watched him go with a puzzled expression. “Did that guy look a bit jumpy to you?” she asked Ryoga quietly, not wanting to make a scene. Then she noticed that the tea was iced and scowled. It would have been nice to change back to eat. Oh well, there’s always the washroom sink while we’re waiting around after ordering.
“He’s probably just one of those nervous types. I meet a lot of them for some reason.”
Ranma shrugged and they both eagerly downed the tea before turning to their menus. It was surprisingly tasty.
In the background, the proprietor looked relieved. The young couple appeared to be peacefully enjoying their date, and the industrial-strength mood stabilizers he’d stirred into their tea should be kicking in any minute. And to think I didn’t believe Mother when she insisted I take precautions before opening a location in Nerima! That reminds me, I’d better hide the cigarettes and get out my long underwear — she’s visiting on Monday. He looked mildly worried at the idea, then smiled down at the little glass vial in his hand as his thoughts returned to the present, reading once more to himself the label:
RYŪGENZAWA BRAND
Dried Sloth Pills
Guaranteed safe with all drinks!
Unfortunately, he failed to note the fine print warning of severe interactions with mythical curses — which was perhaps understandable, as it was in very small boustrophedon Ogham around the edge of the label and looked like mere decoration. On the other hand, he’d not likely have believed it in any case.
* * *
Ranma and Ryoga stumbled down the otherwise deserted street, their heads spinning pleasantly. “Y’know, Ryoga, yer my bestes’ frien’ ever,” slurred Ranma.
“You’s my fav’rite enemy too. Wouldn’a got near so shtrong wiffout you,” agreed Ryoga.
“Emenemy?” asked Ranma in sodden puzzlement. That sounded a bit off somehow.
“Well, really yoush my frien’ too. Sort of. Rival! Thass the word.”
“Yeah! Rivalsh to the en’!” agreed Ranma, trying for a high five and almost falling on her face when Ryoga didn’t notice to reciprocate. “We’ll be tha’ shtrongets inna wholea Japan, you’ll shee.”
“Japan shmapan. I’ gonna be the shtrongesht inna world!” boasted Ryoga, throwing his head back proudly and almost overbalancing.
“Maybe, but I’ shtill gonna be da besht,” countered Ranma with a sly smile, looking sidelong at him.
“Ha, you an’ what dragon Prinshess?” teased Ryoga with an answering grin.
“Puh-lease! Like I’ ever need Herb’s help to bea’ you down,” boasted Ranma. “Uh, which way we s’pos’ta go a’ thiss corner?”
“Why you askin’ me? You bedder not be teezin’ me ‘bout my sensa dee-rec-shun,” warned Ryoga with excessive care and deliberation, losing some of his good cheer.
“Nah, iss jus’ that you always fin’ the Dojo when you don’ exshpect it,” explained Ranma reasonably. “We’s los’, right? That makesh you the exshpert.”
“An’ don’ you fergetsh it,” agreed Ryoga smugly. “Sho, what we do now ish… go THAT way!” He pointed triumphantly to the right.
“If you shay so,” said Ranma affably, turning to face the right.
“Huh? Where you goin’?” asked Ryoga from behind her. She looked. Sure enough, he had proceeded to the left, and looked rather unsteady on his feet now that she wasn’t propping him up any more.
“You gimme a headache when ya do zat,” grumbled Ranma good-naturedly, hurrying to catch up before she fell over.
“Oof!” they chorused as they fell into one another again, and started walking unsteadily in the new direction.
“Bah. Shtoopid girl titsh,” grumbled Ranma, rubbing the mildly bruised area in question. “Shee any hot water?”
Ryoga did his best to look around despite his spinning head. “No, jus’ a puddle o’ colb,” he reported apologetically. By unspoken agreement they detoured to keep well clear of that. “An’ a dog.”
“A doggy? Where?”
“There, shee? Looksh familyer, though. Da we know a dogog?” Inconveniently, Ryoga’s vision was swimming.
“It’sh YOUR dog! An’ her puppiesh!” Ranma reported with some surprise.
“It ish? It izh! Shirokurororo! Here girl!” Ryoga tried to crouch down to meet the Hibiki family dog, and had to catch himself on one hand when he lost his balance on the way down. Shirokuro and her gaggle of puppies jumped joyfully all over the pair, slobbering and wagging.
“You were righ’!” agreed Ranma happily. “Thish wass tha righ’ way ta go. Now she can lead ush to yer houshe!” A vaguely puzzled expression passed across her face. “Why doesh I need a doggy’sh help to find anyplace? Sh’poseta be you who getsh losht.”
Ryoga almost fell over as his concentration moved from Shirokuro to Ranma’s question. “Uh. Mebbe we’sh jusht reelly tired?”
“’at makesh shenshe, I guess. Whoop! Follow the doggiesh! They’sh leevin’ ush behin’.”
Shirokuro was overjoyed at the opportunity to help out her master in her accustomed manner, and soon the group were approaching the uninhabited Hibiki home — as usual, the nominal occupants were all out lost. They were three house lengths away when there came a tremendous crash of thunder, and the heavens let loose a ludicrously torrential downpour.
Ryoga managed to get his umbrella up just in time to save himself from piglethood. Unfortunately, between their unsteady limbs and Ranma’s counterproductive efforts to help steady it, the umbrella was no help at all in keeping her dry. By the time Ryoga finally located his house key in a disused area at the bottom of his pack, she was soaked through and shivering, and Ryoga was barely dry enough to escape transformation by his Jusenkyo curse. They stumbled into the house, leaving a heavy trail of water.
One of the puppies sneezed, and the dogs all made a beeline for the central heating vent in the living room.
Ryoga considered this for a moment. It made perfect sense to him. “Follow thoshe dogogsh!”
“Okies,” acquiesced Ranma blearily, and the two stumbled off after the canines. When they got to the living room, a new problem presented itself. “Brrr. Too cold wiff all ’ish wet thtuff on,” she proclaimed to no one in particular, and began struggling out of her waterlogged clothes.
“Huh, good idea. ’Sh warmer iffen we’sh dry.” Ryoga followed suit.
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END PROLOGUE
Latest revision as of ☾ 2008/12/28
A Game Is Fine Too
A Somewhat Citrus-Flavoured Ranma ½ Fan Fiction by gsteemso
Chapter One
Not my characters. Ranma ½ belongs to Takahashi Rumiko.
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Ranma swam slowly out of the depths of sleep. He rapidly became aware he had a splitting headache, which occupied his whole attention for several moments. After a while certain other sensations oozed to the fore. He… no, he amended, she… felt all sticky, and a bit on the cool side, not that that really mattered to a well-conditioned martial artist. Apparently she’d fallen asleep without a blanket… Or nightclothes. Huh? Wait a moment…
Who was she lying cuddled up next to, to the extent of having her limbs intertwined with theirs?!
She tried to open her sleep-crusted eyes, and was promptly foiled by the cruelly bright morning sunlight. “Ow!”
She tried again more slowly, and after a while managed to make out the inside of a vaguely familiar room stretching out above her. Apparently she was lying on a large throw rug on the floor. Where the heck? She awkwardly rolled her head to the left and was greeted by the sight of an equally sticky Hibiki Ryoga, wearing his signature bandannas and nothing else, protruding from underneath her. Oh. Right. I’m in the Lost Goofball’s living room. She blinked, and rewound a moment. Why is Ryoga naked? Wait a sec. I’m naked too! Talk about embarrassing. Her thoughts squirrel-caged around in wobbly circles for a bit, failing to connect the dots.
A groan from the insensate Ryoga distracted her after a minute or so. “Wha?” he mumbled, sounding like he really needed a drink of water.
“Um. ’Morning,” croaked Ranma tentatively. Whatever had happened to the two of them must have been pretty extreme to knock them both out like this. She couldn’t even begin to guess why they were all tangled up with each other, though it did at least ward off some of the chill of the morning. And why were they both so sticky?
After a couple of false starts, Ryoga managed to answer her with, “G’morning. Um, what happened last night?” The two of them dragged themselves into a much less entwined sitting position, looking blearily around at the scattered wet clothing they must have discarded on arriving here.
“Weird,” muttered Ranma, looking at the tangled clothes in their half-dried puddles of stale rainwater. What DID happen last night? “Uh… last I remember, we were fighting Happosai, and… We went for a snack, didn’t we?” It was oddly hard to focus.
“Yeah, I think so,” agreed Ryoga. “Can’t remember much after that, just that we were in a good mood. Then it goes all foggy.”
“Sheesh, we musta wore each other out way worse than it felt like!” concluded Ranma. “We musta been so fried we just peeled off our wet clothes and fell asleep on the spot once we got here.”
Ryoga suddenly froze, looking down at Ranma’s lap across from his. “Um. I dunno how to say this, but I don’t think that’s all we did…” he squeaked nervously.
“Huh?” She followed his gaze with her own, and — “Eww! What is that slimy white stuff all over my crotch?” She was too baffled to be really grossed out just yet, though she could tell that state of mind was approaching.
“Er… I think it’s from, um, me,” confessed Ryoga with sickly horror. This couldn’t be happening! His mind shied away from the enormity of the realization.
Likewise, it took Ranma several minutes to process the possibility. Oddly, neither of them got defensive or angry, as one might normally have expected of them. The truth of their apparent actions the previous night was so inconceivable to them both that their minds slid off and around it rather than absorbing it. “I think… I really need a shower,” she finally stumbled out, having gotten nowhere.
“Yeah, and a good soak in the furo,” agreed Ryoga distractedly.
The two of them climbed awkwardly up one another until they were both standing, ignoring — with astonishing determination — the pleasurable tingles they got from being touched by one another, and staggered off in search of a bathroom. For some reason, they both started out with really wobbly legs.
* * *
The second time they ended up back in the living room, Ranma quietly took over leading the way.
* * *
“Ooogh, does it ever feel good to get clean,” mumbled Ranma from the wash stool she was perched on, scrubbing her left leg industriously.
“Tell me about it,” agreed Ryoga from his own stool, reaching for the back brush in the corner so he could wash the area between his shoulder blades properly. He was rather nonplussed when the business end fell off as soon as it touched his skin. “The heck?” he asked, staring at the disintegrated remains on the floor.
“Huh,” blinked Ranma in consternation. “Musta dried up from not being used while your parents were… out.” She diplomatically refrained from mentioning that they must have been lost for quite a while this time for such a thing to happen.
“Guess so,” agreed Ryoga glumly, not having any better ideas. “Anyway, would you mind…?” He gestured vaguely with the washcloth in his hand.
“OK, but you gotta help me too afterward,” agreed Ranma. She normally would have vehemently rejected any suggestion that she could use a hand with something so basic, as indeed would Ryoga, but whatever it was they couldn’t remember doing the previous evening — combined with a night spent uncovered on the floor — had left them both rather stiff and sore. She turned to face his back and got busy with the washrag and soap.
After a few moments’ work, she pronounced his back as clean as she felt like getting it, and they turned around so he could return the favour. Ryoga began to run the soapy cloth over her right shoulder blade, and paused in surprise. “Where did you get these funny marks, Ranma?” he asked.
“What marks?”
“These dings and bruises on your neck and shoulder. See?”
Ranma got up with a stifled groan and looked at herself in the mirror.
“Weird. Almost looks like I got bit by something, but they’re not very deep except for the fang marks,” she said, looking up a bit at Ryoga’s reflection behind her own. His mouth was hanging open slightly in surprise, revealing—
Oh HELL no.
“Um, Ryoga?” she said, entirely too calmly. “Why does it look like YOUR fang marks?”
Ryoga blinked in astonishment and shut his mouth. Now that she mentioned it, when he looked at her reflection from the front, the bruises and the tiny indentations bracketing each one looked suspiciously familiar. There appeared to be more bruises — this time without the fang marks — all over her breasts, too. He swallowed heavily, assailed by a sudden ghastly mental image of Ranma’s male form in the same pose. “I… left… hickies?… all over… RANMA?” With difficulty, he managed not to throw up, and then was blindsided by a fuzzy and totally unexpected memory from the depths of the previous night’s debauchery.
—he moved his head down between her inverted calves, leaning in towards her graceful neck as she threw her own head back and cried his name in rapture. As she dug her fingertips into his shoulders, he bit down, marking her as his own as he pushed ever deeper into her—
Ryoga’s mind overloaded from trying to process diametrically opposing mental states, and he collapsed like a solid stone puppet with its strings cut, catching his jaw a nasty crack on the counter on the way down. It left a dent… in the countertop. His jaw, of course, was unharmed.
“Huh. Hickies from another guy are pretty gross, but I didn’t think it was THAT disturbing,” mumbled Ranma in bewilderment. She prodded the limp form with her foot until he was lying a bit less awkwardly, then returned to her ablutions. After some more scrubbing, she walked over and turned the shower on herself, sighing with pleasure as she reverted to male form. “Aaah, what a relief! Huh?”
Ranma looked down, and was astonished to see heavy flows of whitish goop oozing down the inside of his legs, mixed with a fair few dark red flecks of blood. “Oh man.” Not even he could ignore evidence like this. He’d actually done… THAT. Not only that, he’d done it BACKWARDS. With another GUY.
Ranma fell to his knees in shock. Oddly, his desire to retch wasn’t strong enough to make him actually do so, but he still felt pretty ill. He sat there stunned for a few minutes, and eventually reached a conclusion. “That… never happened. Yeah, that’s the ticket.” He determinedly put from his mind the pleasurable echoes of sensation from his other form’s now-absent genitalia, and scrubbed himself vigorously until all traces of the night’s exertions had gone, apart from the rapidly fading hickies.
After a while, Ryoga woke up again. He blinked in shock at the horrible sight of a male Ranma with his, Ryoga’s, bite marks all over him, and determinedly blanked his mind as he finished cleaning up. Neither of them spoke as they ran Ranma’s clothes through the dryer and got dressed for the day, until Ranma finally ventured an innocuous comment over breakfast. It was with no small sense of relief that they finally went their separate ways — Ryoga getting himself lost with a vague idea of finding his girlfriend Unryū Akari’s family pig farm, where he knew he would always be welcome; and Ranma heading off to school in Furinkan district, with hopes of being only somewhat late.
* * *
Last edited by
gsteemso on Mon Dec 29, 2008 1:12 am, edited 2 times in total.