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I've finally got over my laziness and did chapter 3 of Twin
Madness. Since most of you probably forgot what it was about, I'll
tell you that it was about Ranma having a twin sister that looked just
like his girl form. You can get earlier chapters from the remailer (as
soon as our gracious ML maintainer gets to it). Flames about contrived
plot devices go to /dev/null, since I already *know*. What I need are
suggestions. TIA.
=====begin=====
Twin Madness
Yoo Chul Chung (wacko@power1.snu.ac.kr)
Chapter 3
Masako Tells a Story
She just had the most terrible nightmare.
`Wow, my brother was a girl that looked just like me! Thank
goodness it was only a dream, or else Mother would have been
*real* mad,' Masako thought. Something felt funny, though. She
opened her eyes. There was a vaguely familiar woman looking over
her. She had no idea who she was, though.
"Who are you?" Masako asked.
"Oh, you're finally awake. I'm Tendo Kasumi," the woman
said.
Masako sat up and took a look around. She was in a definitely
unfamiliar room.
"Where am I?" she asked.
"You're in the Tendo Dojo. Ranma took you in after you
fainted," Kasumi said.
`Then it *wasn't* a dream! Argh, why is the world starting to
spin?' Masako thought.
"Are you OK? You look like you're going to faint again," Ka-
sumi said.
"I'll be fine," Masako said, and fainted.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A while later ...
"So, you're Ranma's sister, Masako?" Soun asked Masako.
"Yes, though it's hard to believe that," Masako then splashed
Ranma with the water in her cup, "*she* is my brother."
"Hey, what did you do that for! And I am *not* a girl!"
"Yeah, right. Try telling that to Mother," Masako sulkingly
said.
Ranma-chan suddenly blanched.
"Surely, she can't be serious about that promise, can she?"
Akane asked.
"You should have seen her practice with her katana. She might
not be very skilled at actually fighting with one, but she practiced
so much that I haven't seen anything that she couldn't cut through
in one swing. She's serious," Masako flatly said.
Ranma-chan blanched even more.
"Uh, we should introduce ourselves to Masako," Nabiki said,
changing the topic. "I'm Nabiki."
"Nabiki? You're *the* Nabiki? As in `Nabiki the Blackmailer',
or `Nabiki the Extortionist'?" asked an amazed Masako.
"Uhm, that must be another Nabiki," Nabiki said, thinking that
it wouldn't do any good to make Masako wary of herself already.
"This is our dad, this is Kasumi, my older sister, and this is Akane,
my younger ..."
"... tomboy," Masako interrupted.
"Hey! What do you mean by that!" Akane demanded to know,
reaching into hammerspace.
"Well, trying to flatten someone you've never seen before with a
mallet is certainly not behavior a girl should show," Masako replied
calmly.
"Uh, well, ah, that is, uhm ... Why do you always carry that
sword of yours, anyways?" Akane said, desparately trying to change
the subject.
"This?" Masako said, holding up her katana. "Well, it started
something like this ..."
From the earliest times she could remember, her
mother was always practicing with her katana, trying
to cut through things as efficiently as possible. She
never knew why, until one day she asked,
"Mother, why do you cut things with that sharp
thing everyday?"
"This `sharp thing' is called a katana, Masako. Well,
you know what seppuku is?"
Masako nodded, having heard about it from televi-
sion. She had a vague understanding that it was some-
thing you did when you did something terribly dishon-
orable.
"Your father and Ranma promised that they would
commit seppuku if your father doesn't raise Ranma as a
man among men. I am to be their *kaishakunin* in the
unlikely event that Ranma doesn't grow to be a man
inside out."
"Ranma, how come you didn't know about the promise when
*you* promised also?" a smirking Nabiki asked.
"Hey, how should I know what was happening if I haven't even
learned how to talk!" Ranma retorted, after he poured on himself
the warm water Kasumi had brought.
"How do *you* know that you didn't know how to talk? You
must have known all along, just as expected from a jerk like you,"
Akane retorted.
"Hey ..."
"Ahem. Can I please go on with my story?" Masako inter-
rupted.
"Uh, right," Ranma said.
"What's a *kaishakunin*?" Masako asked.
"Well, all you should know is that it is someone
who tries to make seppuku as painless as possible. Be-
sides, this practice lets me take my mind off Genma
and Ranma. I haven't seen them for years."
Masako reached for the katana. Nodoka drew it
back.
"Can't I play with it?" Masako asked.
"No, it's just too dangerous," Nodoka answered.
"Can I touch it?" Masako asked.
"Well ... OK, but you have to be very careful, or
you could be seriously hurt."
"OK."
Masako took a very tentative touch at the blade.
This would be the start of Masako's life in *kenjutsu*.
"You practice kenjutsu?" Ranma asked.
"Yeah, I don't have much use for unarmed combat," Masako
answered.
"Hey, what's so bad about unarmed combat. *You're* the
wimp if you need a weapon to fight!" Ranma exclaimed.
"Wimp?" Masako slowly said. She started to take deep, slow
breaths. "Well, see if you can beat me, and let's see *who* is the
wimp," Masako said, preparing her katana.
"Don't bother. I don't fight girls," Ranma said.
"Oh, you must be *so* weak that you give such a pathetic
excuse to avoid losing to me."
"What! Why, if it's a fight you want, I'll give it ..."
"Hey, hey, hey! We've got some talking to do! Knock it out!"
Akane exclaimed, trying to stop them.
"Don't budge in, you uncute tomboy," Ranma said, concentrat-
ing on Masako.
"What!" Akane exclaimed, and promptly pounded Ranma's
head into the floor.
"Wow, you really are a tomboy," Masako muttered.
"You, too!" Akane said and faced Masako. Masako noticed
that Akane was starting to be surrounded by a faint blue glow.
Akane started to notice the same around Masako. Soun could be
heard booh-hoohing his eyes out in the background, though nobody
cared.
"Oh, my! Akane and Masako have known each other for only
a day, and they're already so friendly!" Kasumi cheerfully said to
Nabiki.
"Uh huh," Nabiki said. `By the looks of things, they're going
to blow away the dojo!' she thought. Her eyes fell on Ranma
struggling to wriggle his head out of the floor.
"Hey, girls! I think Ranma needs some help!"
"So what? He deserves it," Akane said, pushing Ranma's head
further into the floor with her foot.
"Hey, don't be so hard on him," Masako said, and popped his
head out of the floor, using her sheathed katana as a lever.
"Ouch! Couldn't you be more gentle?" Ranma said, holding
his head.
"A martial artist like you should be able to take such pain
easily," Masako said.
"You ..."
"People! Let's not argue. Masako, why did you and your
mother come here yesterday, anyways?" Nabiki asked.
"Oh, didn't I tell you? Oh, right, I didn't. Well, a few years
ago, I had a very close friend, Sayuri. She went to Hokkaido, so I
haven't seen her for a long time."
"What does that have to do with your coming over?" Nabiki
asked.
"Please be patient. Anyways, she moved again, and this time
she moved here in Nerima. She goes to Furinkan High School,"
Masako said.
"Oh, that new girl that came here just before summer vacation
started?" Akane asked.
"Probably, that's when she moved," Masako said.
"What new girl?" Ranma asked.
"You were sleeping when she was introduced, and why are you
suddenly taking an interest in her, you baka?" Akane said, and
slammed Ranma's head back into the hole in the floor.
"Uh, as I was saying, Sayuri moved here, so I decided to pay
a visit the day before yesterday. Well, we talked alot, and she
eventually mentioned that a Ranma was in her school, and that
he lived at the Tendo dojo. So I told Mother, and she wanted to
come right away. I convinced her that it wouldn't be polite to visit
someone unannounced in the middle of the night, so we decided to
come yesterday. We were going to come together, but I had to do
a lot of explaining to do to the police," Masako said.
"The police?" Nabiki asked.
"A car almost hit us, so I instinctively cut right through the
middle of it," Masako said sheepishly.
"Uh ... good thing that car almost hit you. If you came together
and saw Ranma when he was a she ...," Nabiki said.
"Yeah, I'd hate to see someone disembowel himself," Masako
said. She then poured cold water on Ranma again.
"Hey, what did you do that for!" Ranma-chan exclaimed.
"It's really fascinating," Masako murmured, fascinated. She
then poured some hot, boiling water on him.
"Ouch, stop doing that! That's hot!"
"Then tell me why my twin brother would have some kind of
weird curse that turns him into a girl whenever he touches cold
water," Masako said.
"Well, the story goes like this ..."
He then went onto the story of that fateful trip to the Jusenkyo
pools.
"Wow. That's hard to believe," Masako said after hearing the
story.
"Believe it. It's made my life a living hell," Ranma said.
Masako started to giggle.
"What are you laughing about?" Ranma asked.
"It's so funny. Father a panda? And why did you have to fall in
the pool of drowned girl, among all the other pools that were there?
Why not a duck, or a pig, or a cat, or maybe even a combination of
a bull, a crane, and a eel? Why a girl?" Masako said, still giggling.
Silence.
"Uh, did I say something wrong?"
After a short period of ominous sounding silence, Ranma an-
swered, "There *is* someone we know who turns into a combination
of a bull, a crane, and a eel, and there *are* people who do turn
into a duck, a p...," he glanced at Akane here, "uhm, and a cat."
"Oh."
Another pause.
"Uh, where is father, anyways?" Masako asked.
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The modified Boeing 767 was flying over the western Pacific.
"Do we have a good lock on the Keyhole?"
"Yes, sir. Does Washington have any idea what could have
bumped it out of orbit without destroying it?"
"No, or else we wouldn't be here. OK, we've got the satellite
on screen."
After a good look at the screen,
"Why do I have the impression that a bear got pressed into it?"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
He was finally going to have a break from all that stress, he
thought as the plane left the airport. He would leave behind the
hectic life of Japan and gloat in the sun in Hawaii for a week.
He relaxed into the chair and looked out the window. The scene
was beautiful. The blue sky, the white clouds, the green ground, a
falling panda ..., yes, it was beautiful all right.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Splash!
"What's that?" a startled Masako asked.
"I think something fell into the pond," Ranma said. Everyone
went out to see what it was. There was a panda floating face down
in the pond.
"Saotome, what are you doing in the pond?" Soun asked.
In Masako's head, she remembered the fact that her father
turned into a panda when hit by cold water, and connected that
fact with what Mr. Tendo just said. She suddenly jumped in the
pond and hugged the panda with a vengeance.
"Father, I've finally got to meet you!" a sobbing Masako said.
Genma suddenly woke up from the hugging he received. How-
ever, he couldn't hear anything since is head was in the water. In
fact, he couldn't even breathe!
"Help! I'm drowning!" the sign which Genma stuck out of the
water said. (How he manages to write stuff on signs so fast no
matter where he is, even underwater, is still a mystery.)
Ranma jumped on Genma's head and tapped Masako on the
shoulder.
"What is it?" Masako asked, looking up.
Ranma just pointed to the sign. Masako, realizing what she
was doing, pulled the panda out of the pond, with Ranma still on
Genma's head. She was about to resume what she was doing, but
she was interrupted.
"Masako? Where were you? I've been looking all over for you!"
"Mother?!?"
=====end=====
What would you like to happen next? I'm thinking of introducing
Saotome Ranma as *Tendo Ranma* to Nodoka. Or should I just let the
mother know that she's met her son? Or maybe I should have let Ranma
have a swim in the pond in this chapter?
I have no idea when chapter 4 might come out. Since I've posted 3
chapters over a span of six months, it might be reasonable to think
that chapter 4 will come out in two months. I must be one of the
slowest fanfic writers out there. Gomen. ^_^;;
- --
Yoo Chul Chung
School of Electrical Engineering, Seoul National University
Webpage: http://plaza.snu.ac.kr/~wacko/home.html
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