Hi,
 This is my first submition to a fanfic list. This is also the first fic I've been able to breeze through, without struggling over every detail.

C&C, public or private, is welcome (and required!), but please try to keep the flames down, or else I'll get scorched....

Oh, and the title is just a temporary measure, and the rest of the fic is in 3rd person.

##(fic starts here:)

No Need for a Dragon/Slayer Half

(Ryu/Satsujinha�nin Nibunoichi Muyo)

By Alex Timiney, 11/08/2002
curator@discordia.connectfree.co.uk

Revision 1.2 12-13/08/2002
(69chr wordwrapped plain text version)

A Ranma � (Manga) / Dragon Half (sort of) / Tenchi Muyo (OAV) / Buffy
the Vampire Slayer crossover

Insert standard disclaimer here.

    ----------------------------------------------------------------

No Need for a Dragon/Slayer Half
Prologue;

�Here�s Ranma�s Soliloquy�


         �Mistakes you made when a child,
          Return to haunt you till you die,
          Never forget the passage of time,
          Always reborn, in a second life,

          Half of you, half the rest,
          Half the truth is always best,
          A life with you, a life of lies,
          Life and death stop in your eyes�


   I am Saotome Ranma. I am 18 years old, and I live with the Tendo 
family in Nerima, a ward of Tokyo about eight miles to the north west of 
the capital�s centre. I am a martial artist, and heir the Saotome 
Mukabetsu Kakuto Ryu � which can be correctly translated as either 
�School of Indiscriminate Grappling� or, more aptly, �Anything Goes�. It 
usually does.


   When I was six, my father took me on a ten year training voyage 
across Japan and eventually China. The training was highly rigorous, but 
as a result I became the best martial artist of my generation, perhaps 
even the world, or so I thought. However, I paid a heavy price. Many 
terrible things have happened to me in the name of training, not least 
of which was being sold or married off for as little as a bowl of rice. 
More significantly I have an extreme fear of c-cuh-cats, and more 
recently, towards the end of the trip at a place called Jusenkyo (the 
Valley of Sorrow) I was cursed to become a girl on a part time basis. I 
change when splashed with cold water. Hot water reverses the effect, but 
only until next time.


   That�s only half the curse, though. It doesn�t just simply to change 
you � it also turns you into a water magnet. And they do say opposites 
attract. You see, the water which seeks you out is always of the wrong 
temperature, and always hits you at the worst possible time � like when 
I�m a girl wearing girl�s clothes in public, someone /will/ spill hot 
tea or coffee on me. Have you any idea how embarrassing that is? Not to 
mention all the trouble it can cause, especially with mom (who has some 
very odd ideas about what constitutes manliness, though she�s been much 
more forgiving since learning of the curse) and Nabiki (the local Ice 
Queen and mercenary, always out for a couple of extra yen, usually at my 
expense).


   Jusenkyo also has a sick sense of ironic justice � those that visit 
there have a tendency to take on forms that suit them most. Shampoo, for 
example, is an extremely affectionate person, but she is also very 
selfish, and is only really looking out for her self. She became cursed
to turn into a c... c� cat (which are notoriously affectionate, but 
selfish creatures). Happosai, though he�s never taken the �plunge� 
himself, he did curse a newborn child to become a demonic monster � 
about the only thing in the world capable of defeating him outright. My 
father, who is an overweight glutton and wears a pair of large, round, 
face hugging elasticated spectacles, which make him look like a panda 
turns into, well, a panda.


   I turn into a girl. The reason? My father also happens to be 
something of a male chauvinist. As a result, I was brought up believing 
that women are weak and inferior, whose only purpose was to cook food, 
bear children and be protected by Men. Even after visiting the 
Joketsuzoku � a village of Chinese amazons � and having defeated
many strong people with my cursed form, I still believed this teaching. 
And even when I realized that the world wasn�t quite the way pops had 
made it out to be, I still hated being a girl, simply because I wasn�t 
one. In body, yes, but not mind.


   My curse, I believe, is probably the worst. The other cursees all 
turn into things that are distinctly not human. It is easy for this to 
be seen simply as a curse that needs to be cured, but in the mean time 
is merely an inconvenience (a very severe inconvenience, of course). My 
curse though� when I change, I�m still human, I can still operate within 
society (or at least as much as I ever have been able to) and I can 
still live my life almost as if nothing has changed. But I do change, 
and that�s why I see my curse as being the worst. It�s difficult to 
explain� sometimes it�s kinda like my body doesn�t change, but I become 
a different person instead. And that�s what�s scary � the thought of 
loosing myself and changing away from the path my life is supposed to 
take, the path I want it to take. I know people change and grow and 
improve (usually) as they age � I�ve done enough of that myself these 
past few years � but this curse feels more like an abandonment of who I 
am, who I was and who I�m supposed to become� I feel like I die a little 
every time I change. It�s silly, I know, but this is what bugs me deep 
down. That and I make for a really cute girl, which in the end is all 
most people see me as, �specially the guys.


   It�s been about two years since I completed that training voyage and 
returned to Japan and the Dojo I am to inherit (upon marrying the 
current owner�s youngest daughter, of course, though that�s a story 
which has been told elsewhere). Two years of staying in the same place 
has allowed the mistakes and broken promises of the previous ten years 
to catch up with me �n� pop. Ten years of broken promises, abandoned 
fianc�es, jilted friends and strangers, and a whole bunch of other weird 
stuff which has been brewing for that long, but can�t really be 
classified into any describable category, other than �miscellaneous 
weirdness� � a phrase which has become synonymous with my life, of late.


   The only good thing to come out of this chaotic trial by fire has 
been that my strength, speed and skill has improved in leaps and bounds 
with each �incident�. I�d be able to beat myself as I was two years ago 
now in about two seconds flat. A quick Moko Takabisha followed up by a 
Chestnut Fist to the head, if the old me wasn�t already down for the 
count, and that would be it. There�s a little more to it than that, of 
course, but that�s not the point. When I finished my voyage, I was 
little more than a powerful martial artist, capable of physical feats 
that defied most people�s concepts of the limits of the human body. But 
now� well, my skills allow me to perform techniques that are more akin 
to magery than martial artistry.


   Most recently I have achieved two amazing feats, even by my standards 
� I defeated and killed the living god, Saffron, and I successfully 
graduated from high school� alive and in one piece. The latter would 
perhaps have been slightly less amazing if Nabiki had gone to college 
after graduating the year before, instead of hanging around to �raise 
college funds� � again at my expense (thank the kami for the soul of ice 
technique, though, or else I�d not be able to stomach all those photo 
sessions she blackmails me into). The only things I�ve failed to do of
late have been to cure myself of the curse and to marry Akane, but even 
these things I�m sure I will have in my grasp soon.


   Well�


   Maybe�


   You see, I have some secrets. And I�m going to let you in on some of 
them.


   Firstly, I�m not sure if I love Akane anymore� I�m not even sure if I 
ever loved her in a romantic fashion. How can you love someone who 
doesn�t trust you, doesn�t believe you, and won�t even listen to you 
before dropping a table on your head? I think things have gotten worse 
since the failed wedding, just when I thought they�d get better. I don�t 
understand why. Even Nabiki seems a little confused (unless that�s a put 
on and she�s orchestrating the whole thing, because she really doesn�t 
want me to marry Akane� maybe she even knows about� well, anyhow, I�ll 
look into that later). I�m just not sure where things are going between 
us. At first I had fallen for her, despite her shortcomings, but I was 
hiding my feelings from myself. Now, however, I know I�m being honest 
with myself about my feelings, and I can�t honestly say I know what I�m 
feeling.


   Secondly, I�m not as dense as people think. I�m not as smart or as 
cunning as Nabiki, but I do know how to keep a secret, and I do know how 
people feel (sort of, most of the time), and I know how to manipulate, 
and how to appear to be manipulated. I know how to lie convincingly, 
too, but I can only do it when I�m lying to myself... and know it � it�s 
sort of like living in a fantasy, like Kuno does, only its much more 
subtle and internal and� well, sane, so nobody thinks I�m crazy.


   None of these things have helped me much in my day to day routine (if 
anything, the 'situations' have been aggravated by some of my ongoing 
deceptions). My skills in these fields of expertise are still somewhat 
limited, but they have helped me to hide my secrets� my true feelings 
about my curse, and an episode of my life, which only two other people 
know about: the Jusenkyo Guide and a mage who claims to be a descendant 
of the original creators of Jusenkyo and Jusendo. You might be wondering 
about my �true feelings� and this mysterious episode of my life. Well, 
I�ll tell you about that too.


   I really don�t actually mind being a girl� or at least, I really 
don�t mind being female. It�s helped my broaden my perspective on life, 
and has given me an opportunity to experience both sides of humanity 
(and learn some neat techniques). It�s nothing perverse. I think it�s 
more like the feeling people have when they think they were born the 
wrong gender� only in reverse� or somethin�. I dunno. Just �cos I�m 
smarter than I let on, it doesn�t mean I�m any better with words.


   Let me put it like this: I�m a guy, born male and I feel completely 
comfortable with my masculinity and my manhood, not simply because I was 
born that way, but because it feels /right/. When I gained my curse, 
that surety in my self was blown apart by the conflict between my 
upbringing and my newfound femininity. And so I hated my cursed form. 
But very quickly I realised that being female and, to a lesser extent, 
being feminine (and I�m not talking about being girly or any other 
bigoted misconception which would have me demurely cooking dinner for a 
�loving� husband) felt just as /right/ as being male and masculine 
(again, putting archaic misconcepts of manly heroism aside). This is 
what caused my earlier voiced fears about how exactly the curse was 
affecting me.



   Over time, though, I came to realise that those fears were unfounded. 
I managed to heal my self on some level of my soul and give my self the 
mental foundations that should have been provided before visiting 
Jusenkyo. What I said at Jusenkyo after the Saffron affair was true, not 
a put on to hide disappointment at finding the place flooded. For those 
who you who can�t remember I said:


   �I suppose in the end� I understood that my girl side was always a 
part of me anyway. Maybe it was never a curse to be cured to begin 
with.�


   And that pretty much sums it up.


   I�ve only really professed my masculinity when female because of the 
pressures of family and society. I�ve always worn boy�s underwear as a 
girl because it works, while wearing girl�s underwear as a boy /really/ 
doesn�t work at all. It doesn�t fit for a start. I mean, really, I�ll 
always be who I am, no matter what gender I am, right? When I�m a girl, 
I�m a girl, but I�m still /me/. That�s what nobody understands, and 
that�s why I�ve been deceiving myself about it for so long, in order to 
put on the big act for the others.


   Did ya get all of that? �Cos I know I didn�t.


   And y�know, if I really had wanted to be back to �normal�, don�t you 
think I would have stayed after the Saffron affair, until the flooding 
receded� or even just gone out there in the first place? Its not like I 
haven�t swum there before� but then what about the others? They could 
have stayed after Jusendo, or travelled there in the first place. Hell, 
the Joketsuzoku is just a hop-skip-jump away, so why didn�t they cure 
them selves? Maybe that�s a part of the curse, too - an inability to 
return to Jusenkyo to cure one�s self? It would lend some credence to 
the idea that my curse is not really a curse at all, because I have done 
something that non of the others have, apart from Pantyhose Taro, who 
could also claim that his curse is not really a curse at all.


   No one asked why I was on my own when I became �involved� with the 
Dragon�s Whisker (how ironic that seems now), and no one seems to have 
noticed (or at least commented on) the fact that the colour of my female 
side�s hair is bright, fiery red, when it had started off as the same 
Asian blue-black that my male side still has.


   The reason why I was on my own, and why my natural hair colour has 
changed? Well, it�s to do with that �mysterious episode in my life� that 
I mentioned. I�ve only recently started becoming aware of what happened 
myself, now that the repairs that were made have started to come undone. 
Lets just say Taro is not the only �cursee� to have returned to the 
Valley of Sorrow to take a dip in a second pool�



                                  TBC


Incidentally, if you�re wondering why I made Onna-Ranma�s hair black, 
and gradually red, rather than just red all the time, it�s because I 
think red hair suits her, but I�m using the manga /only/ as source 
material, and in the manga her hair is black. It must be black for at 
least one story to work, no to mention all the disguises he takes on.


The lyrics are from a fantastic song called /Happy Ending?/ On the Jan 
Doyle Band�s latest album, /Too Valuable To Risk/.

Visit http://www.jandoyleband.cjb.net/ to hear it, or for more info on 
the band.


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