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To Find a Drowned Human
by Yoo C. Chung <wacko@power1.snu.ac.kr>
It is so depressing. After all the hardships I had went through
with Pai, it's a real let down to learn that we could never become
human. Pai, with her endless optimism, cheerfully says that we only
need to find two other Sanjiyans. But seriously, with the Sanjiyan
race nearly wiped out 300 years ago, with Pai as the solely known
survivor besides Shiva (and he, too, killed just a few months ago), I
seriously doubt we'll ever become human.
Oh well, there's no helping it. Better think about matters closer
to hand. Ling Ling is sending us on a job in Japan. Something about
people suddenly disappearing, people appearing out of nowhere, a ghoul
hopping around the streets ... Sounds like a crackpot to me, but a
*rich* crackpot, which is what matters to Ling Ling. And who am I to
argue with her? *sigh*
Pai and I are prowling about in the Nerima area right now. The
meeting we had with the client just a while ago wasn't very fruitful.
The only new stuff that we learned was that most of the sudden
appearances and disappearances usually happened when water was near,
and that there was a panty hungry dwarf roaming around at night. It
was a little odd that she would make up such a ridiculous story, since
she gave the impression that she was perfectly normal. No trace of
anxiety or hysteria or anything else which might indicate that she was
rather, um, mentally imbalanced. In any case, we're roaming about
aimlessly.
"Pai's hungry!" Pai suddenly says.
"Eh? We just ate a while ago!"
*Growl*
"Hehe," is the response that Pai gives for her growling stomach.
After all this time, I'm still not quite used to the appetite that
Pai has. Maybe it's her 300 year life. Well, there's an okonomiyaki
shop right just a few steps away, so maybe I'll let her fill her
stomach somewhat.
"Welcome to Ucchan's!"
"A couple of okonomiyaki for her," I tell the girl, pointing to
Pai.
"You're not going to have any yourself?"
"Well, I don't have her appetite."
"All right, two okonomiyaki coming up!"
Hmm, the okonomiyaki smells delicious. Maybe I should have one
for myself.
"It's not *my* fault that you can't cook!"
"But you didn't have to give it to Kuno!"
"You can't blame me for wanting to get rid of him!"
Jeez, a couple of loud mouthed kids just came in the shop. One's
a boy with a pig tail, and the other's a girl with a short cut.
"Hi, Ran-chan! What's up this time?"
Obviously the okonomiyaki girl knows them. This might be getting
interesting. Maybe I'll watch.
"Akane made, at least according to her, lunch. And I gave it to
Kuno, since he was harassing me again. Why can't the sexless tomboy
just admit that she can't cook?"
"Ranma, you jerk!"
Heh, this is getting interesting. She must be really pissed since
she just dumped a pot of water on the boy. Wonder what the boy's
reaction ...
...
...
I've got to be dreaming. Better close my eyes. Now pinch my
cheek. Ouch. Well, I'm not dreaming. Maybe I was just
hallucinating. Yeah, that's got to be it. I'll just open my eyes and
I'll see a boy again. OK, now let's open them.
...
No, I wasn't hallucinating. The short-haired girl is just
finishing the act of smashing a table on someone who had a red
pigtail. Ouch. Then the short-haired girl dragged the red-haired
girl away.
So, there's a boy that turns into a girl. That's a big surprise.
Thankfully the initial shock of seeing a boy turn into a girl seems to
have subsided. After all, I've seen weirder stuff.
The okonomiyaki girl doesn't seem to be surprised at the change,
though. She probably knows something about what's going on. I'd
better ask her.
"Uh, excuse me, but can you tell me what's going on?"
"Oh, Akane always abusing my Ranchan like that," the girl replied.
Obviously, she misinterpreted what I was asking. Better be more
specific.
"I mean, didn't that boy turn into a girl?" I asked.
"Oh, that. Tell you what, I'll tell you his story if you order an
okonomiyaki for yourself," she replied.
"Deal," I say.
Wow, that was quite a story. Even the Sanjiyan (I'm still not
quite used to calling Pai's three-eyed personality Parvati) got
interested enough to wake up and listen. The okonomiyaki girl just
blinked once when Pai's third eye opened and proceeded along with her
story. She must have seen a lot of weird stuff around here to not
even comment on it.
Anyway, the tale she told us was quite remarkable. Springs that
make you change into whatever that drowned there when splashed by cold
water and turn you back when splashed by hot water? Hmm, that would
partly explain what the client has been saying if there were other
Jusenkyo cursed people that changed into small animals. Better ask
the okonomiyaki girl. Duh, I don't know her name yet. Better ask
that first.
"Uh, what did you say your name was again?"
"Kuonji Ukyou. And what about yours?"
"I'm Parvati," the Sanjiyan says.
"I'm Fujii Yakumo. Are there any other Jusenkyo cursed people
around here?" I ask.
"Actually, yes. Ranchan's father turns into a panda. And there's
this Chinese guy that turns into a duck and this Chinese bimbo that
turns into a cat. At least it gives me an easy way to keep that bimbo
away from my Ranchan. And it seems that every Jusenkyo cursed person
in the world would eventually spend at least a day here in Nerima,"
Ukyou says. Maybe the client isn't really crazy.
"This `Ranchan' of yours must be a pretty interesting person to
have a lot of girls after him," the Sanjiyan suddenly says with one of
her eyebrows raised. I wonder how she came to that conclusion.
"How did you know?" Obviously, Ukyou is wondering the same thing.
"You're obviously after him. And he had that girl a while ago.
And you said that there was a Chinese girl after him. And undoubtedly
there are other girls after him," the Sanjiyan replies. Hmm, that
makes sense, though it's a little surprising that the Sanjiyan paid
attention to such details, since I always thought she wasn't
interested in boy-girl stuff.
"Yeah, it causes him a lot of problems. Frankly I think that he
would be a lot better off if I were his only fiancee," Ukyou says.
Huh, does that mean that the guy has multiple fiancees?
"Don't you mean girlfriend?" I had to ask.
"No, I really said fiancee. His father promised to engaged
Ranchan to this utterly clueless about cooking tomboy when he was
born, and that Chinese bimbo claims she's engaged to him according to
some stupid Amazon law," Ukyou says, then sighs.
"Amazon? You're talking about the Joketsuzoku, right?" the
Sanjiyan suddenly asks. What's the Joketsuzoku, anyway?
"Right," Ukyou replies, somewhat surprised. "How do you know of
the Joketsuzoku?"
"Long ago, they occasionally provided certain services to my
people." I'd better ask her more about this later, I have no idea
what she's talking about.
"Speaking of your people, why do you have a third eye?"
Uh-oh, I wonder if we should tell her. She seems to be pretty
harmless so far. I glance at the Sanjiyan. She's looking at me with
a questioning look. Aw, what the heck, what harm could come if we
tell her? I nod to her. She then tells Ukyou about the Sanjiyan
race.
"So let's see if I got this right, the Sanjiyans were powerful
magical beings with three eyes, and they got wiped out except for you
three centuries ago?" Ukyou asks, after hearing what the Sanjiyan
told her. We nod.
"Hmm, if a Sanjiyan is so powerful, I wonder if one of them would
be able to get rid of that pervert," I hear Ukyou saying to herself,
barely audibly. A pervert?
"Uh, is there any chance that the pervert you're talking about is
a panty hungry dwarf?" I ask her.
"Err, yes he is," she answers somewhat embarrassedly. She
probably didn't mean that to be heard. "You weren't a victim of his
by any chance?" she asks the Sanjiyan.
"No," the Sanjiyan answers. "Yakumo, tell her why we're here,"
she tells me. I tell Ukyou what we're here for. Hopefully, she could
provide enough information to help us.
"Hmm, that panty hungry dwarf is most certainly Happosai, and the
ghoul you're talking about is probably Cologne. She's Shampoo's great
great grandmother or something like that. They're really annoying,
but they're pretty harmless," Ukyou says. Well, the client isn't a
crackpot, after all, though maybe a little paranoid.
The Sanjiyan and I decide that it would be best if we simply
explained to the client about what we learned. This must be one of
the easier jobs I've had.
Then the Sanjiyan decides to let out Pai and we have a pleasant
chat with Ukyou.
We're on a plane to Hong Kong. The client had a huge sigh of
relief when we explained to her that what was happening around her was
harmless, that she didn't have to worry about it.
I feel somewhat sorry for that Ranma guy. Being engaged to
multiple fiancees, guys who try to clobber him because they think he's
swindled their girls, being forced to eat something that a girl called
Akane cooked ... I shudder at Ukyou's description of what Akane's
cooking was like. I can't believe anyone could be such a bad cook.
Probably exaggerating a lot, though Ukyou said it wasn't an
exaggeration. If it wasn't, then maybe I'll use her cooking as a
weapon one day ...
Jusenkyo. A gathering of springs that turned you into whatever
had drowned there. Now that I think about it, it sounds like
something that the Puma tribe would know. After all, they're a shape
shifting race. I should ask Guppta about this sometime.
Springs that turned you into whatever had drowned there ... Hmm,
what if a human had drowned there ... Wait a minute, that means
there's still a way for Pai and me to become human!
"Pai, we don't have to find two more Sanjiyan to become human!"
"Eh, what do you mean?"
"Remember about the Jusenkyo springs that Ukyou talked about?"
Pai frowns for a moment. Then she smiles brightly.
"Of course! Let's go find the spring of drowned human!"
- The End -
Author's Notes:
Finally, the crossover that was bound to happen one day, a 3x3 Eyes -
Ranma 1/2 crossover! (At least this is the first such crossover that
I know of.) I had this idea of the spring of drowned human one day
and just had to write it. A lot of people would have realized what
the ending would be like from the title and the first few paragraphs,
but I like the title, so ...
The characters are somewhat out of character (e.g. would Ukyou let
Akane drag Ranma away like that?). This is because this isn't
intended to be a serious fanfic, so I didn't put too much effort in
it. Ukyou is the only major Ranma 1/2 character for the same reason
(I originally intended to have more characters to appear, but I got
lazy.)
I used `Joketsuzoku' as the title of the tribe that Shampoo and
company belong to for convenience, even though I strongly suspect that
Joketsuzoku literally means `the Amazon tribe' (not exactly, but close
enough) in Japanese. So don't kill me even if this is the case!
Note that using the Jusenkyo springs to become human is too simplistic
a solution. But delving deeper into it would open a whole can of
worms. What if Pai got dunked into the spring of drowned human boy?
Does she simply become human, or does she turn into a human boy? And
would Yakumo be an Wu regardless of whether Pai was human or a
Sanjiyan, or would he get his soul back when she was human and return
it when she was a Sanjiyan? You see what I mean. Not something to
deal with in a fanfic this short.
I may write an epic tale of Pai and Yakumo trying to become human
through the Jusenkyo springs one day (it will have the same title as
this fanfic). It would probably an epic and not a simple shortfic,
because (despite what Yakumo thought at the beginning), Shiva (and
hence Benares) is not dead, and Benares would do almost anything to
prevent Pai from becoming human. Not to mention the small problem
that they'd need to find a way to keep Pai human. But then again, I
probably won't, since I've learned from experience that it may take a
decade for me to finish such a long tale.
Ranma 1/2 is copyrighted by Takahashi Rumiko. 3x3 Eyes is copyrighted
by Yuzo Takada. Characters used without permission. And someone
should patent the use of author's notes that are almost as long as the
story itself! ;)
BTW, what do you think of the right aligned paragraphs? Do they suck,
or should I use them from now on with whatever fanfic I write? Should
I go back to the simple right unaligned paragraphs?
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