Ranma in Slayers: Ranma & Lina

[Blackcat101]

Chapter 1 here: https://www.fukufics.com/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=9131

****

Two weeks later....

Lina felt frustrated, oh sure she had saved a lot of money but she had also been unable to teach a bunch of idiots to not mess with her! After hours of this, she felt like destroying the whole town. So to avoid doing that (and after securing their possessions), she dragged Ranma as a tag along as she went hunting, monsters, bandits, even a dragon that was just passing by not hurting anyone, they all felt Lina's wrath!

In the end Lina had cast so much magic she could barely move, but she was happy... and cuddly.

"Mmm... you are so soft and nice Ranma-chan..." Lina said while Ranma carried her back to town, in a princess carry. "You understand me, don't you? You like to beat up bandits for loot too! And you even turn in a handsome man with hot water!"

"Lina, you are acting like a drunk." Ranma said a bit uncomfortable with how grabby Lina was being.

"Mmm... Probably. I saved so much money... got to beat up bandits, monsters and a dragon... did you bury the new loot for later?"

"Yes, it literally was too much to carry, are you okay? Your hair didn't turn white for wasting all your magic, like they warned me at that magic shop, but-"

"I don't know... I just... I feel so happy... only thing that would make it better is... Zzzz." Lina finally felt asleep and Ranma felt relieved.

Why did he keep running into weird girls? Akane with her bad temper, Kodachi who was just insane and keep poisoning him and that Shampoo girl who outright wanted to kill him.

Well... at least he didn't think he would see Shampoo or Kodachi again, not until he got back to Nerima.

IIII

After he dropped Lina in their room, so she could sleep, Ranma went back for the loot, then waited until Lina was awake so it could be sold and traded for valuable things that were smaller and easier to carry. Sadly even with his 40% cut he still didn't have nowhere enough for a better magical sword.

'Wait a minute... Lina has not taught me any magic yet!'

So he went right to confront her partner and teacher.

"Okay Lina-san, you had your fun, but it has been two weeks and you haven't taught me even single spell."

Lina sweat-dropped, the hand she had used to seal the magical contract itched.

Had it really been so long? Well she had got a bit... distracted.

"Fine, Lighting is the most basic of basic of spells, is a spell that anyone who even has a drop of magic can cast and here-" Lina said pulling out a heavy anotated notebook from one of her pockets and leaving it over the table in their rented room, "Is all what you need to know to cast it."

Ranma stared at the notebook, while not big it was as large as one of Kasumu romance novels. "Is that notebook all for one spell?"

"Yes! What? Did you think magic was easy? Lighting is the easiest spell that exists, even small children can cast it! If you can't even do this much then I am sorry but it won't be possible for me to teach you magic."

"Okay." Ranma picked the notebook and started to read it, for something that was written by hand, it was quite detailed and even had a few illustrations. Ranma had seen several Martial Arts techniques manuals that were way worse done that this.

Before he knew it, Ranma had read it over ten times and it was time for dinner.

After a heavy meal, Ranma tried to cast the spell.

'Okay, I just extend an open hand in front of me, then focus on the same tingly feeling I get when I use my magical sword fire and say the words...'

"Oh Light which burns beyond crimson flame, let your power gather in my hand! LIGHTING!"

Ranma went blind as light literally exploded from his hand.

"Ouch!"

"Well you can do the most basic spell in existence, congratulations my cute student!"

"You think I am cute?" Ranma asked in a teasing tone, his eyesight still recovering.

"Ehem, anyway I taught you some magic, and you taught me how to better haggle people using cuteness but there is still things we can do better elsewhere. So let leave to a big city tomorrow. You are not going to get a decent magical sword in small town like this and I need to get things only avaliable in big cities."

'Oh good thing I didn't buy another magical sword yet then.'

IIII

Lina had asked some time to do some things on her own so Ranma had decided to go for a bounty out of boredom and this was the result.

And because he still didn't have enough for a better sword, the prices just were ridiculous!

"Kekeke! one of my parents was a troll, just that won't kill me!" Yelled the annoying Bearman after Ranma had burned him with his sword and then the beast man healed in front of Ranma eyes.

"Oh really?" Ranma said smiling and cracking his knuckles. "That means I can keep beating you up and you will just get better? THAT'S AWESOME!"

Ranma then proceeded to use the Bearman bandit as a training dummy and a testing bed for several martial art moves he had not perfected yet.

Turns out that while the Bearman had super fast healing, he still had a sense of pain, the bear was asking for mercy after only half a hour, much to Ranma's disappointment.

So he dislocated all the bones he could on him (the Bearman healing didn't put his bones back in place, Ranma had checked) and then picked him up like a sack of potatoes and carried the bear man back to the city for the reward.

Even with reward, he still didn't have enough. Maybe in the long term Ranma was better getting a Sorcerer blade, but that would only really work for him once he knew more that just a single spell that even small kids can use.

IIII

After doing yet another useless search for an ultimate offensive spell, Lina sat down on a public bench in a park.

Someone sat next to her.

Lina looked to see who it was and groaned.

"Naga are you following me?"

"I take offense on that, if anyone is following the other is you Lina Inverse!" Said Naga the Serpent.

Lina covered her face with her two hands. "I just know that I will regret asking, but what do you want Naga?"

"Are you okay Lina, is your new partner treating you well?" Naga asked with a concerned tone that was unlike her.

"She is okay, even if people thinking we are sisters is getting a bit annoying." Their voices even sounded similar, it was weird!

"OHOHOHO! Has Lina Inverse awakened feelings of love for another girl?"

Instead of using magic Lina just slapped her.

"Oh shut up! Why can't you eve act like a normal person for more that a few minutes? And worse, why do you keep doing that laugh?" Somehow while Lina was frustrated she just didn't feel like getting into an actual fight with Naga, at least not until Naga got really annoying. It couldn't be helped, she recently had so much fun it was hard to get annoyed at the moment.

Naga was shocked at the slap and looked at her former partner. "You slapped me... Instead of attacking me with magic?"

"That's because you at least tried to ask me if I was doing well." And Ranma's training had somehow helped to control her temper slightly better. More importantly was the fact that losing her temper with attacking spells, in a town on city at least, cost her a lot of money, so that helped to hold back. So did the young kids playing in the park, she didn't want to hurt them.

"Oh my, my little Lina-chan has grow up so fast!"

"Did you just sat next to me just to annoy me?" Lina left eye twitched.

"No! I... I need advice." Naga said in a lower tone.

"Oh... About what?"

"About my family."

Lina blinked "You are asking me? You do remember I ran away from home, right?" Granted it had been because of her big sister Luna but she still loved her parents. And even then she didn't think she was the best person around to talk about family problems.

"You are still the best option I got." Naga didn't have to sound so resigned about it, that hurt a bit of Lina's pride.

"Fine, then tell me.'

IIII

"And the worst thing is that... she she... she dares to have a sob backstory that makes my own problems look like a joke and makes me feel bad for how much we fought each other!" Lina said between eating her food while Ranma both ate his own food and listened.

"Sounds rough, I had people try to kill me before," Even if only Shampoo so far had been really insistent. "But most of her family wanting her dead just... for a noble title? That's horrible."

Genma Saotome had done many bad things to Ramma, but at least he had not tried to get him killed... on purpose.

Now it must be clarified that while Naga the Serpent did explain things to Lina, she didn't admit to being actual royalty, but downplayed things and changed names, saying it was a barony.

"There are many benefits of being nobility but if you ask me is not worth the headache." Lina said. Now actual royalty? That's different, what sane young girl didn't want to marry a handsome prince? But of course Lina Inverse was not going to point that out to her partner. "So how was your day?"

"Got bored and hunted down a troll bear guy, is amazing how much of a bounty he had just for eating without paying, even if he did so many times."

"Oh Ramma... Remember our deal? 60% of that bounty is mine!" Lina said in a sing song voice and a cat like smile.

Ranma smirked "Really? Does this mean I get a 40% cut of whatever money you made on your own today?"

Lina's smile disappeared.

"Yes... in my defence I didn't expect our deal to be magically enforced." And now that she knew Naga was a runaway noble, who was trained at magic since a young age, she was even more wary to try to tamper with the magically enforced contract.

"Anyway have you tried using the Lighting spell as a guy?" Lina asked and Ranma blinked.

"Why? The sword doesn't work when I am a guy so what's the point?"

"Can I give a look to your sword?" The shorter redhead asked.

"Fine but please don't break it." Ranma grumbled but handled Lina the sword.

Lina examined it carefully. .

"Oh, this sword actually not bad, decent materials too; but all it does is the equivalent of a fireball spell and it drains the user magic to do so. How many times a day can you use the sword magic?"

"All the time? But never have done more that five times a day." Ranma asked confused.

"And it doesn't work when you are a guy? Uh, that must mean that not only the curse turns you into a man, when you are a guy it lowers your Bucket capacity so much you don't even have enough for a single fireball spell."

"Bucket capacity? What's that?"

"It represents the amount of magical energy a caster can gather at once. Someone bucket capacity determines what powerful spells they can cast, as most spells have a minimal energy requirement: If the caster fails to supply enough magic then the spell won't work. Supplying more magic than necessary on the other hand increases the spell's power. Oh since we are at it, here is more reading material to study magic." Lina said and drooped a dozen books in front of Ranma.

"Okay?" Ranma picked them up and put them in the many pockets that he had added to his clothes at Lina's insistence.

"There will be a written and practical test in two weeks, if you don't get at least a 98% score then you won't like what I will do to you in the name of training!"

"What? I can't learn this much in just two weeks!"

"Oh what's this Ranma, do you want to cancel our contract?" Lina said with a cat-like smile.

"No, Ranma Saotome doesn't give up that easily!"

"Your funeral." Lina said in a sing song voice.

"Wow, no wonder you have no friends."

"What's that Ranma? You want me to add even more studying material for your test?"

"I... I will stay quiet now."

***

If Lina had thought things better then she would have realized that Ranma would dedicate the two weeks to study, meaning she didn't get Ranma help on jobs, much to her grumbling.

"Okay, I would take notes but these books are already annotated and with better calligraphy that mine anyway." So memorization and practice it was.

'Pool capacity represents the sum of magical energy a caster can channel through himself before wearing himself out. Unlike Bucket capacity, which is usually fixed at birth, pool capacity can be expanded as it mainly depends on the caster's stamina. This also makes completely expending it quite dangerous, as the caster may be so weakened that they may fall unconscious and sustain a serious injury. Side-effects of magic overuse usually show as hair turning white for a while and internal injuries.'

"Stamina? Well at least I am not lacking in that due to years of martial arts training."

'The Sorcerer's Guild protects its favored position in magical education and knowledge by forbidding sorcerers to teach arcane fundamentals or spells to a third party without permission, although this restriction is hard to enforce and is usually not uphelded by all.'

"Uh, so Lina teaching me could get her in trouble? I wonder why she accepted then?"

'The guild holds possession of a considerable portion of the magic lore available, although more exotic texts seem to be missing from their libraries. Aside of being the primary source of arcane knowledge, the guild is also responsible for the education of would-be sorcerers. Students at the Sorcerer's Guild are acquainted with the fundamentals of magic theory and spellcasting, but when it comes to spells, only simple and usually non-destructive incantations are made available to them, mostly from the white and shamanistic category, and not even all of those. The guild even holds back simple spells that can be used for criminal acts.

If the pupil wants to know more powerful magic, they usually need to invent the spell themselves or use the guild library, something that cannot be considered cheap by any means.'

"Uh, no wonder Lina cares so much about money if her guild is like this.'

'Unlock and Sleeping are simple spells that the guild doesn't teach their students without them paying a hefty fee to learn them from the guild library, this is because their notorious abuse by criminals. In practice however criminals usually learn them from other criminals.'

Ranma stared at two of the dozen books, one had the knowledge to learn the spell Unlock and the other for Sleeping, it was the only two spells Ranma had to learn, the rest was all useful information, theory and history.

"I honesty don't know what to think of Lina..." If nothing else she was a good teacher, but most likely didn't want to be one for life due to her temper and because she most likely would get bored.

"Mmm, I wonder if Lina will get angry if I ask her questions, teaching is more that just giving someone books to read after all."

Lina then stormed their room in the inn, a cheap one since Lina and Ranma could easily deal with any thieves and neither of the two was willing to expend too much money. Ranma because of saving to get a better magical sword and Lina because of being greedy... and maybe needing the money for something expensive.

Looking at the angry expression on his teacher's face Ranma almost didn't ask but couldn't resist anyway.

"Do you want to tell me why do you look so angry?"

"I got a bunch of people try to kill me."

"And? How is that different from the usual people trying to kill you?"

"Someone put a bounty on my head!" Lina said and slammed a wanted poster on the room desk, making it tremble.

Ranma picked the poster and gave it a look, wow the drawing on it was really bad. "Lina Inverse, the Butcher of Cornel? Did you kill a guy with that name or that? Wait... I was in that town before we meet! You weren't the one that destroyed it, it was bandits! And one million gold coins reward? No one in that town had that amount of money! not even everyone in the town together could get that much! Plus no one died, the town just was trashed? What the hell?"