At The Beach
A Ranma Nibunnoichi Fanfic
(with some reference to other works by Rumiko Takahashi)
by Chris "Chika" Johnson

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Disclaimer

The characters in this fiction are not my creation and are used
without permission.

Datclaimer

The exception to this is that Toriko, Mansaku and Sokkenai are all
my own work. Sad, innit?

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Chapter Three: What About The Arts?

Ranma was bored. Not surprising really, since her new mermaid body
did not really lend itself to the kind of training that she was used
to doing. The school year had started too, and Ranma was surprised
to realise how much she missed those interminable lessons with
Hinako Ninamiya, the energy vampire. Not to mention the daily
attacks from Kuno and Ryoga, the persistent pestering from Ukyo,
Kodachi and Shampoo and the continued idiocy of the dojo residents.
Of course they were all back in Nerima, which seemed a thousand
miles away from the watery isolation of Kasumi's cave, but one could
think about it.

Akane was outside the cave with Kasumi. Neither Ranma nor Akane
really knew for certain what mermaids actually did with their time,
and neither really thought about the daily chores that they had to
do just to make life bearable. Kasumi probably adapted better
because of the degree of common sense she had, but where the other
two were certainly out of their depth, Kasumi made up for it. If
anything, it seemed that Kasumi did not really mind being a mermaid,
and possibly never even gave it a thought. Well, she certainly hid
her feelings well if that was not true.

Toriko swam in suddenly. "Hiya, Ranma! Did you find the sorcerer?"

Ranma tapped her head, the circlet gleaming in the diffused sunlight.
"He gave me this thing. He said that this is part of the removal
spell, but for now it stops me going gaga."

"How do you mean?" Toriko asked,  puzzled.

"Hmm... put it this way," Ranma answered, cryptically. "Would you
like to become human again?"

"Me? Human? No way! I might miss being a swan, but I'd never want to
become human again!" Toriko answered easily, with a little shudder
of disgust at each mention of the word "human".

"Exactly," Ranma said. "You completed your transformation. You can't
even think about going back. Same as Akane. But I haven't completed
yet, and if I am to go back, I can't afford to. See?"

Toriko pondered this, and though there was a degree of revulsion in
what Ranma was suggesting, she could understand what she meant. If
she was to return to the land, the last thing Ranma wanted was to
become so revolted by the idea of becoming human that she might
baulk when the curse was broken. Much as she was scared by going
back to having legs, Toriko suddenly realised that the coercion of
the curse had not stopped her from wanting to fly away, and since
the curse got in the way of her other curse, she would need to
change back.... Toriko was now resisting the urge to be violently
ill. "Yes..." she rasped back at Ranma.

"Well then."

"But how are you going to convince Akane?" Toriko asked, gradually
regaining her composure.

"Good question," Ranma said, rolling her eyes surface-ward. "I
talked with her until my throat was hoarse last night, but I got
nowhere."

"I can see the reasoning, and I can even understand why I might want
to go back, but I just can't. I am a mermaid, and I want to stay
that way." Akane had come in during the last part of the
conversation and added her view. "And I know that Ranma wants us to
be together, and I really don't see a problem. We are both mermaids."

"And I told you, Akane, that I don't want to stay this way," Ranma
reiterated. "I have a life back in Nerima, people I miss, things I
want to do that I can't do here, and whether you like it or not, you
have been part of it, and I want you to still be part of it."

"No, Ranma," and Akane sounded final. "I'm not going back."

"See what I mean, Tori-chan?" Ranma said in exasperation.

"Yup," Toriko replied. "I can see why she might not want to go back
though."

Ranma rose and swam out of the cave, leaving Toriko and Akane
together to gossip about hard headed former aquatransexuals, and
swam towards the cove arm.

                                ---

Ranma noticed that Mansaku was waiting for her and wondered how he
knew that she was swimming that way.

"Hello, Ranma," the old hermit said as Ranma pulled herself from the
water. "How goes the persuasion?"

"How goes the spellcasting?"

"Ah," Mansaku said with some resignation. "I did say that it would
not be easy. For either of us. Still, all is not lost, and I believe
that more than one mermaid shall leave the seas, despite the worst
that the curse can do."

"You sound like you know more about this," Ranma observed.

"Indeed I do. I lived in the village when this curse was first laid,
and I am a living artifact of that time."

Ranma dubiously eyed the old hermit again. "Did you fish at all?"

"Very good." Mansaku sat as he began to tell his tale. "It all began
many years ago now. The curse was the result of my foolish attempt
to rescue my wife from the merpeople. I tried to force them to
release her, and in my fury I caught one of their number and flayed
her alive. As she died, she placed the curse you and others like you
now bear, though originally the curse was merely directed at the
female members of my own family. My son saw an end to that when he
left the village, never to return, but the curse was insatiable."

"One thing," Ranma asked. "You say that the merpeople held your
wife. I never heard that bit of the story before."

"The merpeople of that time were greedy and desired much that was
not theirs. They also had no fear of humans as those of the current
generation do, so it was common for them to take hostages against
the ransom of jewels and other precious stuff. They did not value
such things as humans do, merely wishing them for their own vanity,
but they knew that humans indeed place great value on such things
and, since they had no way of crafting such things for themselves,
they would hold humans that wandered too close to the margins of the
seas. My wife, being a fishermans' wife, often had to do such a
task, and was taken. I never saw her again."

Now that Ranma had heard the whole tale, she was somewhat piteous of
the old codger.

"The curse," Mansaku continued, "was that until the hide of she who
was taken from the seas was returned, all females of the village
shall be doomed to assume the form of the mermaid until death, and
shall be forever divided from those that they leave behind on land,
a very fear inhabiting them of all works of humankind, and never
shall they return to the land. Of course, the hide is now returned
to the sea, so there is now hope for the breaking of the curse by
means that until now have been useless."

"So now what?"

"Go back and wait. When the time is right, I shall send for you. And
don't give up with your Akane. She will remember, ere the end, where
her true place in this world is." And with that, Mansaku disappeared.

Oh man, Ranma thought, I hate all this waiting.

                                ---

Back in the cave, Ranma saw that Toriko was still sitting inside,
lightly dozing. "Hey, Toriko," Ranma said loudly, as much to wake
her as to get her attention. "Is there any place a martial artist
might get a little action anywhere around here?"

Toriko blinked and sat up. Somewhat slurred, she responded; "The
only thing that comes to mind is the Martial Arts Swimming
Tournament. It's a form of combat swimming that some merfolk do that
used to be used to defend them against dangerous beasties and humans
and such, though these days it is more of a hobby sport than
anything."

"You done any yourself?"

"Not I," Toriko was awake now. "I've watched some of it, but I'm not
much of a fighter. I left all that behind me when I got my Jusenkyo
curse."

"But Jusenkyo is a training ground for martial artists."

"True," Toriko hugged her tail in an attempt to get the pins and
needles out of it that suddenly arose after she had unwound from her
uncomfortable sleeping position, "but when I turned into a swan, I
just didn't feel like fighting anymore. At first it was because I
could easily be defeated with a bucket of water, later it was
because I liked flying and resented anything that might stand in the
way of that. An injury might keep me grounded for days, even weeks.
So I stopped, and never really started again, even when I came down
here."

So it was that Ranma and Toriko swam out to the underwater dojo of
the Martial Arts Swimming Team, a surly group of mermen and women on
examination who seemed menacing from every angle. The trainer was a
squat looking merman with a whisker problem. As she watched the team
take on another team from a neighbouring ocean dojo, Ranma sized up
every move.

It was obvious that moves that one might make as a human were
totally useless down here. The water drag would slow everything down
for a start, and all moves had to be envisioned in three dimensions.
True, this was also the case on land, but even more so here as
"flying" was far easier in this environment than in any land bound
discipline. As the display went on, however, Ranma started to think
of adaptations of moves that he had mastered on land. The old
chestnuts roasting on an open fire move would never work down here
as the kind of hand speed needed was impossible, but certainly some
of the battle aura style moves, such as the Rising Dragon move or
that mood bomb thing that Ryoga used when he was really depressed,
now they would be pretty devastating underwater. One thing that
Ranma could not fault was the fluidity of the battle movements being
used, obviously to conserve energy and to allow maximum
effectiveness given the ever present water resistance. Ranma had
become used to that over the last few days, but this made her regard
the problem in a completely new light.

Now for the highlight of the days' tournament, and the two battle
champions from each dojo stepped forward for a final showdown. The
local champion was a mermaid, though Ranma wondered if "maid" was a
fair description given her stocky appearance and capable expression.
There was a lot of power stored in there, and though nobody could
ever call her beautiful, she was certainly someone that you couldn't
help respecting, even admiring. The opponent from the visiting camp,
however, looked little more than a runt. A merboy with a sneer on
his face.

"I know this sounds a bit crude coming from a mermaid," Ranma said
in an aside to Toriko as the two champions lined up below, "but am I
the only one that smells something fishy?"

Toriko would probably have facefaulted there and then had it not
been bell time in the arena. With very little effort, the runt
rushed the stocky mermaid and threw her bodily out of the ring!

"That looked a bit like something I used to do at the Tendo dojo,"
Ranma commented.

It was unfortunate that the runt overheard this, lording it around
the edge of the arena. He stopped, trying to single out the speaker
that had called his victory into question. "Who said that? And what
is a Tendo?" Ranma kept quiet. "Come forth, whoever that was. It was
a mermaid, the voice was too feminine for other. You..." - the runt
pointed at Toriko, but Ranma swam forward to intercept what might
have been coming her way.

"It was me," she stated. "I'm new here, but I used to study martial
arts before I came here."

"Your name, missy," the runt demanded, in complete disregard for
manners.

"Ranma."

"I am Sokkenai, champion of the mid-sea dojo and victorious in this
tournament. Do you challenge me?"

Ranma pondered. Even if she lost, she might get a few pointers. It
wasn't every martial artist that got a chance to study this form of
fighting, and it seemed that she would be down here for a while yet.
"Why not?" she replied, carelessly.

"Uh oh..." Toriko quickly realised that it might be best to have
Akane or Kasumi close by. She swam out of the dojo and back to the
cave as fast as she could, though it was quite possible that it
could all be over before she could get back. Toriko had never swam
so fast, and by the time she arrived before Akane and Kasumi, she
was as breathless as a mermaid could get, considering that they did
not breath in the same way as humans.

"What is it, Tori-chan?" Kasumi asked.

"Ranma... in fight... local dojo... other guy is a monster... must
get help..."

"Oh my!"

"Knew.. you'd... say that... Kasumi!"

Akane and Kasumi arrived at the dojo just in time to see Ranma and
Sokkenai arrange themselves for battle. there had been some delay
while they repaired the ring after the previous bout - the stocky
mermaid's departure had left quite a trail of damage behind!
Sokkenai's first attack was fairly predictable; he tried the same
move that he had used to win against his previous opponent, and
Ranma only had to swim clear of the shock wave. Yes, she had been
right. It was very similar to the ego wave that Ranma had invented
using his own ego and Ryoga's trademark move. Right now, however,
Ranma could not reply in kind; her ego was still suffering from the
double blow of enforced femininity and life as a mythical marine
creature. She couldn't use her pride about herself because she
wasn't sure what she was right now. Now Sokkenai moved in with close
combat moves that Ranma had only observed. Ranma knew she was no
match for this form of attack so, being inexperienced and with no
way of protecting herself, she was hurled into a wall. Sokkenai
looked at Ranma, waiting for the eventual capitulation, but instead
Ranma swam back into the fray and tried something new. Well, she had
only assumed that it would not work, but why not try anyway?
Brainwave! Not chestnuts, but piranhas! Ranma remembered her use of
an unscrupulous side show peddlar's attempt to bamboozle her ages
ago when Cologne had begun to teach her that chestnuts move.
Piranhas in an aquarium!

Ranma made no connection with Sokkenai, but suddenly the wall behind
the runt opened. The move was nowhere near as fast as it had been in
its original form, but the sheer force of the move was enough to
push a column of water through the wall, just missing Sokkenai by
mere inches. Now Sokkenai was in trouble, running out of ideas as to
what could be done to combat this mysterious young mermaid. He moved
in close to try to use the same move as before, but this time it
failed. Ranma was ready and dodged the move easily, the force
sending the runt to the floor. Momentum! Ranma thought,
triumphantly. It's all about momentum! He has to build it up to be
effective, and if I don't give him something to hit, he just ends up
hitting clear water and wastes energy! It was all over by this time.
Ranma conserved energy, using less powerful versions of her new
chestnut routine to keep Sokkenai off balance, then letting him
punch himself out. No need for anything more dramatic. Sokkenai
tried a last shot, then fell to the ground.

First to swim over was the same stocky mermaid that had been
defeated before. "Congratulations, young mermaid! There are a few
folk that have been itching to take that boob down a few pegs! Where
did you say you trained?"

"Erm.. the Tendo dojo," Ranma replied, somewhat cautiously.

Why does that name sound so familiar? Akane thought as she swam over
and joyfully hugged Ranma.

"Can't say that I know it," the stocky female continued, "though it
sounds human" - mass shivers around the dojo - "but if it is that
good, perhaps a few of us might like to go there some day!"

Ranma could only smile weakly at that, partly because she knew that
this would be difficult for a bunch of somewhat heavily built
merpeople, partly because Akane was succeeding in knocking the water
out of her in her adoration.

                                ---

Back at Kasumi's cave, Ranma considered pushing the subject of
returning to the land again, but a loving squeeze from Akane on her
arm convinced her that, at least for tonight, she would leave the
topic alone. Perhaps the morning would be an easier time for it.
Ranma rubbed her eyes, realising that this had been a somewhat
tiring day for her, then she felt her circlet. At least she felt
where it had been. It was no longer there! Ranma felt a chill
creeping through her, as though the curse had returned to avenge its
arrest. Without the ring, Ranma would be doomed to a life in the
sea. And without the ring, sooner or later, she would probably stop
caring about it. Slipping away from Akane, Ranma swam from the cave
and off to the dojo, now quiet and empty save for a few residents
who currently snored in a side cave.

Ranma looked around in the stalls where she and Toriko had watched
the display, then down in the arena itself, still scarred with the
various damages inflicted on it by the various fighters.

"You looking for something?"

Above her, Ranma suddenly saw an undersized merboy twirling a golden
circlet. "Give that back!"

"I just can't do that," Sokkenai sneered. "I feel that you abused my
honour today, and this is reasonable payment. But I'll fight you for
it. My guess is that this has some bearing on how you beat me
earlier, and I mean to find out how."

- End of chapter three -