I thought I'd toss this idea up for grabs. I have had it floating around in
the back of my mind for a while now and it seems to me that it should prove
productive in the way of creative and adventurous Ranma fanfics. Feel free
to take it and run with it. Of course, you'll have to figure out what the
Ranma-verse has been fused with in this case, but that shouldn't be much of
a problem for many. Oh, and don't let the Ranma's relationship to the
Amazons fool you. Just make up your own back story to cover it.
=20
Good hunting,
=20
Don Granberry.
=20
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
The Far Island Scroll
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
=20
Ranma reminded himself once again that what had happened was
an inevitable part of life and living. He had not been ready
for it even though he had looked forward to it on more than
once in his youth. Happosai was gone. The old man was gone
never to return, having made that one-way trip into the great
beyond.=20
=20
Perhaps more surprising for him than the old codger's death
had been the numbers of people who came to the funeral. Ranma
smiled grimly to himself as he remembered that more than one
attendee had attended for the sole purpose of assuring
themselves that the gnomish old panty thief was "most
sincerely dead" as one wag had put it. There had been another
unanticipated event at the funeral. Much to Ranma's shock,
surprise and dismay, he had broken down into tears as they
laid the old man to rest.
=20
Ranma heaved a deep sigh, which got his wife's attention. She
turned to him and stared at him in silence for a moment, her
nose wrinkled at the dust and clutter in the old man's
treasure room.
=20
"You know, Ranma, I hate to say this, but I am going to miss
the old monster now that he's gone. Things will never be the
same again."
=20
"Yeah, I know what you mean, Akane. I never expected to be
sad about this."=20
=20
"Yeah, well, you trained with him a lot more than I did."
=20
"Training? You call we did training?"
=20
"You did learn a lot from him."
=20
"Hah! Mostly what I did was learn every technique I could
find in hopes of defeatin' the old freak."
=20
"Sounds like pretty good training to me," Akane said. "I
wonder if he was telling the truth about having the scrolls
for thousands of sealed up techniques stashed in here?"
=20
"We won't know until we look, Akane."
=20
"Well, before we can find anything, we will have to do
something with all this lingerie."
=20
"Yeesh!"
=20
"Ranma?" a deep male voice called out from downstairs.
=20
"Up here, Pops! In Happosai's cache!"
=20
"Be careful up there, boy! That's a place where even the gods
have to be cautious."
=20
"So that's why you won't come up here and give us a hand,
huh?"
=20
"Why don't you just start throwing the master's collection
down here so that we can start stuffing it into bags," Genma
shouted back. "That would be the simplest for all concerned."
=20
Ranma cast a glance at his wife. She smirked and shook her
head.=20
=20
"Some things never change, Ranma. You couldn't get dad and
your father up here at gunpoint."
=20
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Ranma said in a normal tone of
voice, then shouted, "Okay, Pop's, but you and Oji-san will
hafta to carry it all off to tha dump, too, okay?"
=20
"That's more than acceptable, son," Soun Tendo called back.
=20
"Akane, have ya ever noticed that your dad calls me son more
often than Pops does?"
=20
Akane snorted derisively then asked, "How often do you call
your dad anything other than shit-daddy?"
=20
"Well, hey, he's got it comin' most times."
=20
"Oh, my!" Kasumi said as she worked her way up through the
trapdoor and into Happosai's inner lair. "This is going to be
quite a job, isn't it?"
=20
"You got that right, Kasumi," Akane said, with a note of
concern in her voice. "You shouldn't have to mess with this
though, not until Ranma and I get the worst of it out of the
way, anyway."
=20
"Oh, Akane, I don't mind, besides, there's no telling how
many of my things we'll find up here."
=20
The three of them set about gathering up armful after armful
of lingerie, most of it clean, thank heavens, and dropping
the bundles of orphaned linen down to Soun and Genma.
=20
"That's mine!" Nodoka shouted.
=20
Akane and Kasumi tittered at this while Ranma made a sour
face. Kasumi picked up a brassiere by one strap saying, "This
looks like one of my miss=C5c" Kasumi fell silent as whatever
the bra had been wrapped around fell to the floor with a
clatter.
=20
"What's this, I wonder?" Akane said as she picked the object
up. It was a bamboo tube. One of the end caps was missing.
=20
"There's something inside this thing," Akane said.
=20
"Akane, be careful!" Ranma exclaimed. "There's no tellin'
what..."
=20
"It's just a scroll, Ranma. Relax!" Akane chided her husband.
=20
"Ranma is right, you know, Akane," Kasumi said in her tones
of gentle admonition. "In your condition you should be more
cautious!"
=20
Akane rolled her eyes at this while she tried to get a grip
on the scroll with her fingernails. "I'm just a little
pregnant, Kasumi. I wish everyone would quit treating me as
though I have a terminal disease."
=20
"Kasumi's right, Akane," Ranma said. "There's no tellin' what
the old man left lying around up here."
=20
"Got it!" Akane cried out with satisfaction as the scroll
reluctantly slid out of its tube. She unrolled it part way,
then her eyes widened with shock. "The handwriting is
beautiful!"
=20
"Oh, yeah?" Ranma said. He started moving toward his wife,
but banged his head on one of the exposed rafters. "Ow!"
=20
Kasumi joined Akane and began looking at the scroll over her
younger sister's shoulder.
=20
"Oh, my it is beautiful! And look! Some of it is illuminated!
I never heard of such a thing in the orient."
=20
"Illuminated?" Ranma asked with a note of alarm. He was still
rubbing the top of his head. "What language is it written
in?"
=20
"Very old Japanese, I think, Ranma. Have you ever heard of
such a scroll being illuminated before?"
=20
"Only once," Ranma said, sounding grim. "Put it back into the
tube."
=20
"Why?" Akane asked as she unrolled more of the scroll.
=20
"If it's that fancy it has somethin' ta do with=C5c"
=20
"What's that shiny patch, Akane?" Kasumi asked with a gasp,
interrupting Ranma.
=20
Ranma was now well and truly alarmed and hastened toward his
wife again, only to once again hit his head on yet another
rafter.
=20
"I don't know, Kasumi=C5\Look! A picture is starting to form in
it!"
=20
"Oh, what a beautiful landscape!" Kasumi exclaimed.
=20
"It's=C5cit's like a movie!" Akane exclaimed. "Almost as though
a camera were flown around that tall building in the center
of the picture."
=20
"Akane, roll that thing up!" Ranma shouted as he again tried
to make his way towards his wife and sister-in-law. "It's
danger=C5\Gah!" The big toe on Ranma's right foot had gotten
tangled in the strap of a brassiere that his left foot was
standing on. He tripped and popped his chin on the hardwood
floor of the attic. "Ouch!"
=20
"What could this be made of, I wonder," Akane said as she put
out her hand to touch the glowing patch of light on the
scroll.
=20
"No!" Ranma shouted. "Don't touch it. There's no tellin' what
might happen!"
=20
Heedless of her husband's concerns, Akane gently placed the
tips of her fingers on the scroll. Kasumi grabbed her arm in
an attempt to stop her.
=20
"NO!" Ranma shouted as both his wife and sister-in-law began
to dematerialize before his eyes. "NO-0-O-O-O!"
=20
But it was too late. Both Akane and Kasumi disappeared while
Ranma watched in horror. The scroll gently wafted to the
floor, like a falling leaf.
=20
"Dammit!" Ranma shouted. "Hard-headed, un-cute Tomboy!"
=20
"Ranma, what's wrong?" Genma shouted up from the room below.
"What's going on up there?"
=20
"I dunno, Pop! One of the old freak's scrolls turns out to
have been a booby trap of some kind.
=20
Ranma rolled his eyes as he heard Soun Tendo inhale sharply,
then begin crying.
=20
"Ranma how could you?" Soun shouted. A ghastly green light
burst through the trapdoor opening, warning Ranma of terrible
wrath to come.
=20
"Calm down will ya?" Ranma shouted as he tried to cover his
face and head with his hands. "I gotta think and you ain't
helpin' any!"
=20
There was as surprising period silence, followed by the
whispery dry voice of a woman that had lived far longer than
most, some would complain far longer than she should have.
=20
"What happened, Great-grandson?"
=20
Ranma opened one eye and looked upwards. Sure enough, it was
Cologne. He breathed a sigh of relief and sat up.
=20
"I ain't sure," Ranma said in an aggravated voice as he
pointed at the heavy parchment lying on the floor. "Akane
found this scroll and touched it even though I was tellin'
her not to and ta put it back in its tube."
=20
"Hmm, pick it up very carefully by its edges, Great-
grandson," Cologne said. "Let's get into better light. My
eyes aren't what they used to be."
=20
Then, without further ado, Cologne made a little hop on her
staff and disappeared through the trap door. Ranma sighed and
shrugged his shoulders. He carefully pinched one edge of the
scroll between the tips of his forefinger and thumb, then
gingerly made his way down the ladder with the potent
parchment. He exercised great care to avoid letting it touch
his body as he did so.
=20
The room below was empty. With an aggravated grimace, Ranma
made his way downstairs and into the main room of the house.
Everyone was gathered around the table and Shampoo was
already serving tea. Ranma gingerly laid the scroll out on
the tabletop.
=20
"Can you read any of this, Great-grandson?" Cologne asked.
=20
"I dunno, maybe. The writin's real clear but the characters
look like the ones used back during the Warring States period.
=20
"That would be my guess as well," Cologne said with a nod of
her head. "It's too small for me to read easily."
=20
"It's illuminated, like one of those European manuscripts,"
Nabiki said, sounding surprise. "I've never seen that
before."
=20
"I have," Ranma said with a grim look on his face.
=20
"Where?" Nabiki asked.
=20
Genma splashed himself with water, thereby turning panda.
This earned him a poisonous stare from Soun.
=20
"What does it say?" Cologne asked, sounding peeved.
=20
"This is the Far Island Scroll," Ranma said, reading aloud.
"Gimme a minute to make some more of this out. The characters
they used back then were a lot different from the ones we use
today."
=20
Cologne gave out an exasperated sigh then said, "The
Legendary Far Island Scroll. This is going to be a very sore
trial for you, Great-grandson."
=20
"Look!" Shampoo exclaimed. "It making picture like movie!"
=20
"Whatever ya do, don't touch it!" Ranma shouted.


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