by Nekomata-sensei » Wed May 07, 2008 10:56 pm
Ranma 1/2 X HSDKenichi
Part of the secret behind Ranma's skill, as well as his hairstyle after the dragons's whisker incident which is after being cursed, but especially the personality that awakened in his girl form when hit on the head in the anime, is because Ranma was Miu Fuurinji in a past life in another dimension. Since Kenichi is still coming out, I'm going to make this part up, but Miu marries Kenichi in the end and Kenichi becomes heir to the dojo but she remains around his skill level, and learns most of the skills and techniques he does simply from being constantly around and having the martial arts grounding to allow this. She ends up having kids with him and for the most part they live happily ever after and wind up dying of old age cared for by their children and grandchildren who have inherited the dojo.
After the failed wedding another bonk to the head awakens Ranma's memories as Miu over time, as well as getting better in tune with his girl side since he's accepted the curse, with a compounding factor to the curse magic being strengthened by exposure to Jyuusenkyo water. Miu's knowledge of accupuncture and advanced techniques and medicine is enough to reveal to Ranma how corrupted Anything Goes is and that his aura has been manipulated with shiatsu and accupuncture by Genma growing up in various ways, in order to control him and boost his martial arts training and ability, dangerously amplifying his chi and healing, reducing his killer intent and ability to think outside of the moment, increasing his ability to think in the moment, and reducing his ability to produce yin chi and increasing his ability to produce yang chi, creating an imbalance that even the curse wasn't doing to great to fix, but had also partly protected him from the normal psychological effects of such a curse, in addition, Ranma had been taught Do style of ki use (using strong emotions, even 'coldness' is an emotional state for the comparison to Sei and Do) and there had been attempts to set him on some sort of Way of the Ashura type path, although not with killer intent, Happosai's Way of the Ashura was perversion, and Ryoga's is headed towards depression, and Cologne's Coldness, Akane's anger, etc.
Ranma uses the awakening skills and knowledge from Miu's life in order to fix his aura, purifying the emotional buildup from the Do style and switching to Sei style ki use, re-aligning the inner ki systems to more natural and healthy states that don't put as much stress on the body and mess with the mind, which helps him realize just how much he's been manipulated and how bad his current situation is.
However, the people surrounding him don't take to well to the changes, specifically the older martial artists like Genma, Soun, Happosai, and Cologne. They prefered Ranma more simple-minded, accepting, forgiving, and unable to solve his problems on his own, and want him to be easy to manipulate for their own purposes, and Happosai simply desires to corrupt him, having turned into something of a demon from going so deep into the Way of the Ashura. They also don't like Ranma's increases in skill and power that allows Ranma to start to really take on their true strength, without them holding back as much to hide higher levels of skill from Ranma so that they can defeat him when needed. They also don't like that Ranma is beginning to see their evil and is enough of a good guy, despite Genma's attempts to corrupt him, that he'd be opposed to that. Unfortunately for Ranma, they've been holding back quite a bit on him, especially Cologne and Happosai, to give him a false idea of their skills, and they are quite determined to catch him, beat him up, erase memories and skills from Miu's life with some sort of method, and warp him again, possibly more completely this time to make him easier to manipulate. Ranma only escapes initially by using Miu's love of cats to overcome the neko-ken terror and utilize the technique to boost his speed and power without losing his mind.
After that it's something of a great escape/chase. Ranma is trying to evade the high level martial artists and gain enough skill and power to defeat them, as well as overcome problems they've caused him, or he's gotten into, while also dealing with the turmoil from Miu's memories and perspective of a lifetime overwhelming his 16-17 years of life as a boy/cursed gender changer, and causing her to lean to the girl side more, and the released hormones from fixing his aura, and new feelings and stuff. The high level martial artists are using various methods, including different magical methods, to track Ranma. One of the factors protecting him is that they don't all get along so well, Cologne is working separately as she has different plans for Ranma's conditioning, and Genma and Soun are working separately from Happosai as they want to join the schools and retire off Ranma, while Happosai wants to corrupt Ranma, and generally doesn't care about what Soun and Genma do, unless it interferes with his plans, and Soun and Genma fear Happosai.
Ranma also has to deal with the fact that Miu never actually reached the level of Happosai and Cologne's true levels, so he has to find other sources of training eventually. He has to stay on the move and try to find ways to block their tracking methods, such as staying at warded shrines and carring charms from the shrines, or simply moving erratically and constantly so that he's gone by the time they catch up to where they'd detected he'd been, and they still catch up regularly forcing Ranma to fight hard and pull off clever tricks to escape. Meanwhile, Ranma's also trying to come up with a way out of the fiancee mess without anyone dying or losing honor, and skirting the realm between being disowned for disobedience and being too difficult to control and being too valuable to let go, and Genma has already begun the threats.
Making Ranma's traveling more difficult. Many fear to oppose Happosai or Cologne or even Genma and Soun to hide Ranma, or are pissed at Ranma or at least the Saotomes due to Genma, things on the training trip, or Kumon Ryu when he impersonated Ranma during his long and very lound and in your face theiving carrer, and Ranma desires to try to fix up his reputation, and often gets slowed down trying to clear up such problems and find ways to repair honor and pay off debts, while still on the run.
"Health, Learning & Virtue will ensure your happiness; they will give you a quiet conscience, private esteem & public honor." Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)