Well, well, well, will wonders never cease.
Yay!
Ahem.
It's really good to see this again.
I love cliff-hangers. Bwahahahahahahahaha-- *choke* *gasp!*
Ahem.
Gesundheit. :)
Anyway, here it is below. If you want to read part 1 first, go to
http://nabiki.newberry.edu/deddy/fanfic/dave_eddy/wildchild/index.html.
My home page begins at http://nabiki.newberry.edu/deddy, for those
that are curious or who have forgotten who the hell I am. :-)
As usual, C&C is invited. I use Commonwealth spellings, mostly,
so be aware there may be some strangenesses.
OK. All comments strictly my opinion, and offered in good spirit.
Wild Child 2 - Nodoka-san no Ko
{How ambiguous. :) }
by David Eddy
Warning: Occasional adult concepts. Some readers may
be offended by some of the material contained herein.
{Let them eat, uh, never mind. :) }
Looking idly around the room, Ranko noted the way
light of tonight's half-moon made peeked through a gap
way the light {?}
in the curtains and painted Nabiki's cheek in argent,
making it almost seem to glow. Elsewhere in the room,
shades of grey delineated the shapes of Nabiki's room:
{suggest, to avoid repetition} Elsewhere, shades
The desk and chair, the various oddments in the
{suggest, as a colon doesn't terminate a sentence, does it?} the desk
room... At her feet the wardrobe against one wall,
{suggest} room; at
next to the head of Nabiki's bed... and the bed
itself, positioned under the window to get maximum
benefit of any cooling breeze in summer.
Trying again to beckon sleep, Ranko put thoughts
of Nabiki out of her mind by idly wondering to herself
about her brother and his relationship with Akane.
{A subject that must have resulted in many hours of musing on the part
of many of the R1/2 characters, to be sure. :) }
*Akane* certainly wanted to have a relationship with
*him*, she was sure, but she was holding herself at
arm's length. A couple of reasons for that popped up
in her head, but she thought she had Akane pegged.
Her nervousness during the bath and her reaction to
her final question about doing it with Ranma in his
girl form were a flare-lit tipoff that she *did* in
fact find Ranma's girl form attractive but she pushed
him away because she hated herself for that same
attraction.
{There are several possible reasons for Akane's reaction in manga-canon,
of course, with the most likely being that Akane is not attracted to
onna-Ranma, and doesn't want to be... but I think the notion that she IS
attracted to onna-Ranma, and doesn't want to be, runs a close second,
and it's the one I prefer. Lots of angst potential there. #3 is probably
that Akane is attracted to onna-Ranma, but doesn't want to appear to
be... not quite as interesting.}
After all, everyone knew girls didn't do the
nasty with other girls. She smiled wryly to herself
at her own irony.
Thoughts of the others, though, failed to keep
the central issue away from her mind for long. She
was incredibly nervous, wondering what tomorrow would
bring, wondering whether she could take another day as
{suggest, to emphasize possibility} what tomorrow might bring
tumultuous as this one had been: Reunited with her
{Again with the caps-following-colon... it looks odd to me, but I guess
it works for you, so never mind...}
brother (and father), had her existence denied in the
most vehement possible way, and finally things had
reversed themselves once again when her own mother had
stood up for her and affirmed her status as Ranma's
twin... though only at second hand, since her father
had been too *cowardly* to show himself so the whole
matter could be resolved right then and there.
In the room she shared with her mother and "Panda-
san", onna-Ranma hardly slept at all. Instead, she
nervously huddled beneath the covers, her danger
senses' constant twanging making her night a misery.
{heh. It's interesting to note the differences between manga v22 pp.
66-69 and this version. :) }
Next to her, on her own futon, Saotome Nodoka,
mother to the great and wonderful (and continuously-
training) Ranma, slept deeply.
{Nicely-turned phrase; very economical.}
With a sigh she sat up. Her mother lay in her
futon, with her father - Panda-san, at the moment -
lying dead to the world at the far side of the room.
Briefly she quailed at the sight of the naked katana
still hovering above her, blade firmly grasped by a
wooden beam rising up the side of the room.
{In the manga it appears to be stuck in a chest of drawers, for what
that's worth..}
Akane pulled up by the dojo gate smiling. She
gate, smiling.
took a few deep breaths of the cool, crisp air and
took in the sights and sounds around her.
She turned her head to ask a Akane about it, but
ask Akane
the question died unspoken as she noticed that Akane,
in an unguarded moment, was watching Ranma raptly.
{Busted! :) }
Suddenly, Ranma was by Ranko's side with her hand
clamped over her sister's mouth. "Shh, Ranko!" she
said nervously, sotto voce, as she glanced nervously
towards the house. "If Mom finds out she'll kill me!"
out, she'll {?}
Several expressions flitted across Ranko's face
before it settled down in apology. "Gee, I'm sorry
oniichan, I forgot."
sorry, Oniichan,
"Don't call me that!"
Ranko looked hurt but nodded. "Okay, Ranma."
Tears glimmered in her eyes and her face had fallen.
Ranma could think only of his danger. "Don't
her {up 'til now, Ranma-pronouns have reflected Ranma's physical form,
so I assume that's the convention you're using...}
call me that either. To Mom, my name is Ranko! Tendo
Ranko!"
Ranma just looked at Ranko and said nothing. At
length she shrugged. "Well we're stuck with it now.
That's what I told her my name was last weekend. How
was I to know that..." Ranko turned her head away.
"Aw, shit, I'm sorry sis."
sorry, Sis."
"The moment anyone sees you together, they're
gonna realise you're twins. You two look absolutely
identical. If you weren't dressed differently and
your hair I don't think I could tell you apart at
all."
{"your hair", lacking a verb, is a bit incoherent even for casual
speech, I think... also, Ranko's pitiful level of physical conditioning
might perhaps be glaringly obvious to the two martial artists, and hence
a perceptible difference.}
A silence descended. "Then last night, why
didn't mom...?" asked Ranma at length.
Mom...?"
In her room, Nodoka sneezed.
{heh!}
"I don't get it." Onna-Ranma frowned at Ranko.
She was tempted to move her arms just to see if Ranko
would follow her as if she were an image in a mirror.
{No, that's in a later manga. :) }
"Well, one of us is more impossible than the
other," said Ranko with an innocent smile at Ranma.
Akane laughed shortly and Nabiki smirked while Ranma
had the grace to look mildly offended before smiling
at his sister.
her
"Well it seems to me the basic problem is that
"Well, it
nobody in his right mind could doubt for a moment that
you two are not only related by blood, but twins,"
said Nabiki. "God only knows why Nodoka-obasan didn't
pick up on it last night."
A pregnant pause was broken by Ranko saying,
"Thank you, mother."
Mother."
Nodoka raised an eyebrow millimetrically, but
smiled to cover it. "I came over to say that
breakfast will soon be ready. And afterwards..."
A long, foreboding silence fell. Onna-Ranma and
Ranko shared a glance, while Nabiki did a fast fade.
Finally Akane nervously asked, "Afterwards?"
"Afterwards, I thought it'd be nice if we all
went to the zoo!" said Nodoka sunnily. She then
looked in mild confusion at the three teenagers
arrayed on the floor, limbs twitching. "What? What
did I say? Would you rather go shopping?"
{Hahah! Very Nodoka. :) }
Ranma was, of course, grateful that she would not
have to fight off her father's gluttonous attacks on
her meal. But she would rather have been fighting off
her father than having to deal with her mother... his
mother.
{male pronouns in the next few paras, following the transition in the
previous one... I assume this is to emphasize Ranma's attempt to, er,
out himself, but it's a bit confusing.}
Still, as he saw his sister set down her rice
bowl and chopsticks with a determined air, he knew the
die was cast. Ranko was about to put into motion
their hastily-whispered plan, and he firmly clamped
down on the collywobbles that tried to upset his
stomach. Instead he reached for his tea.
"Mom..."
Nodoka's eyes flipped briefly between her
daughter and "Tendo Ranko" before settling on Ranma.
"Yes... Tendou-chan?" Her face registered muted
surprise mingled with growing suspicion at being
addressed in such a way.
{Two different Romanizations of "Tendo", here and elsewhere; suggest you
choose one and do a global search and replace...}
Genma-panda began to edge sideways, but Nodoka
gestured with the sword and the panda once again froze
into trembling immobility.
{and here we transition back to the usual pronoun convention, yes?}
Soun looked panicked, his eyes hunting for a
distraction. Then Ranma groaned on the floor and sat
up, rubbing her head. She looked around, eyes
widening at the sight of the naked sword being held
rock-steady at the panda's throat. Almost as an
afterthought, she rubbed her head.
{again; she was rubbing it earlier in the para}
"I don't know what's going on here, Tendou-san,"
she said to Soun while pinning the panda with her
gaze, "but with respect, I suspect all is not as it
seems. Not only is this panda in no way a panda, but
the so-called Tendou Ranko..." She swallowed, then
gestured with a nod. "Look at her, she is the
{suggest} her; she
identical twin to my own Ranko. It's as if she were
my son, somehow made... female...."
{EEEEK!}
She trailed off
in horror, her blade staying steady but the panda
forgotten, looking at the two Rankos.
A brief, cool breeze broke the utter silence that
followed, rustling leaves.
For a long, long moment, nothing happened.
Then the tableau was broken by a rustling thud as
Nodoka collapsed bonelessly in a dead faint.
{Wouldn't have been surprised if she'd had company. :) Nice descriptive
prose.}
Genma-panda jumped into action, grabbing once
more for Ranma and his pack, but in the blink of an
eye found himself pinned to the tatami floor, his
wrists tingling in discomfort in a joint lock, right
on the very edge of excruciating pain.
"Stuff it, you old shit," spat Ranma in his
broadest street drawl. "Mom's figured it out, an' I
ain't runnin' away, an' you ain't leavin' me to carry
the can." He grinned mirthlessly. "Betcha di'n't
think jujitsu holds worked on pandas, eh?"
{Yay! Way to go, Ranma! However, the previous two paras use male
pronouns for onna-Ranma, and the convention is getting a bit tattered.}
"Oh, you're awake, obasama," she said cheerily
Obasama,"
but with a tinge of concern. "Are you all right?"
Nodoka sat up and saw that Soun had been kneeling
Soun was kneeling {he still is, right?}
formally to her other side, a small distance away. In
one corner, lying on its belly with wrists and ankles
tied and joined by another rope, was that impossible
panda.
"She is a young man suffering under a curse, a
curse which causes him to take a female body from time
to time," she said. "Through his father's negligence,
ignorance, and haste, and a moment's carelessness,
*he* now is forced to become female when splashed with
cold water." Kasumi erased the frown she had been
directing at the panda and smiled. "Fortunately, hot
water returns him to his original - natural - body."
The smile became more unpleasant. "I suppose it is
Kami-sama's vengeance visited upon the father that he
also is cursed, to become a panda. It appears to suit
his nature well."
{Some people may not like this Kasumi, but I do. There are lots of
occasions in the manga where she is rather more severe than her usual
blithe portrayal. What makes this a bit iffy is that it's decidedly not
original-flavor for someone to cut the Gordian knot quite so
efficiently... it could be strung out a good deal longer. Nodoka also
seems to take the idea of Jusenkyo curses without boggling, which is
pretty surprising. I'd think it would take proof for her to even
consider the notion: first display, then explain.}
Then he set down the teacup and bowed once again,
slowly, formally.
"Saotome Ranma desu," he said. "Sumimasen."
{heh. He just keeps having to say that, doesn't he. :) }
Tearful reunion over with, and Genma restored to
human shape if not humanity, Kasumi served freshly-
{ow. Harsh. Suggest cutting "if not humanity"; it strikes me as a bit
too, er, editorial. If the characters want to think that, that's
different.}
brewed tea. Outside, the wind picked up force,
rustling the leaves of the trees in continuous waves
that made a pleasant background sound, allowing one to
ignore the background sounds of the city. A brief
rain squall made the air smell clean, kicking up the
garden scents and amplifying them.
Genma cleared his throat into a pause in the
conversation. "What, then, of this child Ranko,
wife?" he asked gruffly. Knuckles planted on his
thighs, he knelt in a position of rock-like solidity.
"I remember no daughter, yet even I can see that she
is Ranma's twin."
{Darn good question. I await the answer with keen anticipation.}
Nervously, Nodoka pulled the sheets toward her
and read them, knowing already what they would say.
Honda Fujiko, adopted as a Saotome. On the same day,
the marriage of Saotome Kenji and Saotome Fujiko.
Saotome Nodoka, born of Saotome Kenji and Saotome
Fujiko. No other children. Suzuki Genma, adopted the
day before their marriage eighteen endless years ago,
known thereafter as Saotome Genma. Saotome Ranma,
born on such-and-such a date.
{I hope you're going to go into the implications of the adoptions in the
story, because they escape me but they are clearly significant.}
Saotome Ranko, adopted exactly seven years later,
original family not known but listed as Saotome. The
deaths of her parents.
So normal.
So much of the story not told by those bare
listings.
{So tell it, man! Aaargh! :) }
David Eddy - Senior Consultant, Progress Software Melbourne
dje@progress.com
Screening Coordinator and Subbing Bunny, Melbourne Anime Society
My home page is at http://nabiki.newberry.edu/DEddy
No problems other than the glitches I noted; I still want to know what
happens to these people. Hope your muse is faithful!
Thanks for writing and sharing!
Vince Seifert Fanfic Analyst FFIRC Frog
Prime: seifertv@csus.edu
Backup: seifertv@myrealbox.com
Techie: http://webpages.csus.edu/~seifertv/
Fanfic: http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/seifertv/toth/
Ideas are worth their weight in gold.