Happi Days

The sprinklers had gone off just as the second period had started. There had also been a telltale thunk through the pipes, that of water suddenly slamming into more water that had been in the pipes to begin with.

Nabiki quietly pulled her plastic three ring binder off her desk and held it over her head as the water came down all around her. It was, unfortunately, not quite quickly enough to keep her from getting damp.

Then came the shock as she saw exactly WHAT was happening in Furinkan Senior High School on this spring day.

Nyanniichuan was her immediate leap of deduction. Somebody had rigged the sprinklers with the cursed waters of Jusenkyo's "Spring Of Drowned Girl" and she was watching the results with a certain horror. At the very least this would cut into her sales of photos of Ranma-chan and Akane.

Except that it didn't look like "girl" was quite the correct term. "Supermodel" might be a better description.

There were a number of women in class who were wearing the male school uniform, and the uniforms didn't even come close to fitting correctly. She noted that the Blue Thunder was one of the former boys who had just gone completely into shock and weren't moving beyond the hands.

Said hands moving over their own bodies and reporting that Something Very Bad had just happened.

Nabiki frowned as she realized that she too had been affected by the waters. Her figure had been tweaked but not by much, and she seemed a little shorter though it was only by a couple of inches at most.

The water abruptly stopped, though Nabiki doubted many of those affected were really capable of noticing at that point.

Nabiki waved a hand in front of Kuno's face, noting no reaction. Moving to the window, she looked around and noticed a short figure bouncing away from the school grounds. "Happosai did it."

Nobody noticed that Nabiki had been sufficiently rattled that she had just given information away for free. Only the directed rage they were feeling allowed some of the people there to feel anything at all.

Tatewaki Kuno stared down at her breasts for a brief moment, then drew her bokken. "THAT SORCERER SHALL PAY FOR HIS VILE DEEDS!"

For once, a large number of individuals agreed with Tatewaki Kuno. The mob began to move, a group of people that were united by a single purpose. In this case it was Vengeance. Later would come the solitary heart-searching, the crying, and the feelings of loss.

Now was the time to get even. Right now, it was something to focus on besides what had just happened to them, and THAT was something gratefully accepted.

Nabiki watched, idly working on ways that she could turn this to her advantage. A lot of people would require their uniforms and regular clothing to be altered to fit the changed bodies. Kasumi was good at such things, perhaps a business opportunity was here? One of the reasons Ranma favored his Chinese clothing, after all, was that he lost over a foot of height (gaining most of it in the bust, Nabiki had noticed) when he changed from boy to girl.

Nabiki noted the crowd below. Hiroshi as a buxom brunette, Daisuke a slender but curvaceous beauty running nearby, Ukyou recognizable by her battle spatula and having burst out of her breast bindings, her sister Akane's hair seemed to have lengthened and her own figure had been enhanced somewhat, a thin young lady that could only be Gosunkugi, and all the other students that she could recognize but altered into somewhat shapelier young ladies.

Noting that Tetsuo had been absent from class today, the usual smirk appeared on her face. She could contact him and sell him news of this event, or she could wait till the recent transfer student from Juuban showed up and be amused as he went into shock. From his stories, he had seen youma attacking the school, but how well could he handle THIS?

Shaking her head, Nabiki went to the bathroom, as her own breasts were a little too tight against the fabric of her dress. So it was Nabiki who discovered that hot water was ineffective. She sold that info but others gave it away quite freely soon after.

Then came the thought that Happosai had done this here, what if he had more of this water, where would he go next? Nabiki's eyes widened. This was Very Bad, but she could think of a lot of ways this could get worse. She had to hurry.

Soun turned on the television, the shogi board would have to wait until Kasumi finished cleaning that area. What he saw had him immediately call out to the large panda that was prowling in the kitchen.

VOICEOVER: "...and our reporter in the field is now at the site of the disaster!"

The picture shows a middle-aged man standing in front of Furinkan High School. For once, there are no hangers on behind the reporter waving and making inane statements like "hi mom." Instead the camera is panning over a crowd of women, some in male school uniforms, some wearing suits, some wearing gym clothes.

"Wataru Kurankute reporting for Eye Witness News. Today at Furinkan Senior High School in Nerima there was an event even stranger than the usual goings on. Furinkan has become a School For Girls like their longtime rival Saint Hebereke, however this has not been accomplished by a zoning or school policy change."

Soun and Genma exchanged a glance.

[This looks bad.] read a sign from Genma-p.

"My daughters, what has happened to my poor daughters." Soun began to water the floor with a flood of tears.

Kasumi brought a mop quickly before the wooden floor could warp. "Oh my. Do you mean they could have been turned into girls?"

Soun and Genma glanced at Kasumi, shrugged, and turned back to the set. Kasumi smiled.

A student wearing a t-shirt that was WAY too damn tight over her breasts was doing an excellent imitation of Soun's usual crying jag. "It's GONE! I've got THESE now, and my life is RUINED! What can I do? I...I...I'm better stacked than my GIRLFRIEND! WAAAAH!"

An unidentified woman came up and started beating the speaker over the head.

The camera went back to Wataru. "The events continue to occur throughout Nerima. We have reports that two eateries were hit by the same unexplained events!"

A picture of a young-looking Cologne standing outside the Nekohanten alongside a Chinese woman in white with "coke bottle" glasses.

A picture of Ucchan's with a wet Konatsu and a damp mailbox being shown. Both the mailbox and the kunoichi appeared to be yelling at each other.

Some woman with circular glasses looking thoroughly bewildered outside Dr Tofu's clinic.

A crowd of gaijin women in clothes that don't fit right in a similar manner to everyone else. One of them is running out of the store with a Sailor Moon fuku that looks like it will fit.

A small group of Japanese businesswomen who were likewise wearing men's clothing that didn't fit at all right. One was apparently going into hysterics, while the rest were showing their dedication to the Japanese ideal of "enduring hardship through stoicism."

"This film," said Wataru offscreen, "was filmed during a martial arts match in Nerima's Battlebowl(tm) Arena by an amateur cameraman."

A poorly lit scene displayed two muscular men, each wearing a gi. One wore a red gi and was a blond haired gaijin. The other wore a white gi and was just as obviously the Japanese home favorite.

White gi: "It has been years since we have fought, are you sure that the soft life in America has not made you too weak to fight me?"

Red gi: "Get a life, why don't you?"

A blur goes by the camera.

The woman in the white gi went absolutely still in shock, then realized that the gi is mainly open in the front. She made a startled sound and covered up.

The woman in the red gi looked down at herself and checked to see if they're real. Looking around, she spotted the cameraman and yelled something. The screen abruptly went blank.

The scene switched back to Wataru. "We're still trying to analyze the tape to determine what exactly is going on and determine the authenticity of the..." The newscaster broke off as he looked at something happening to his left.

Wataru looked down at herself and fainted. The camera angle changed to show a short and wrinkled up old man with some sort of super soaker device in his hands. He was laughing, and it appeared to be Evil Laugh #17 (maniacal "I'm so clever" laugh.)

Back at the dojo, Genma and Soun turned pale and visibly sweated. "M-m-m-master?!"

"Oh my."

The figure on the TV pointed a finger at the camera. "RANMA! I don't know how you knew to avoid school today, but all this happening is YOUR fault. If you don't surrender yourself to my revenge, I will continue my attacks on ALL YOU HOLD DEAR!" Happosai glanced to the side. "You've got a lot to answer for. You don't fight girls? Well, now you won't have ANYONE to spar with except ME! It's permanent, it affects the mind, and there's NO CURE! Oops gotta run."

The camera angle changed again as the camera operator shows Happosai running, a pack of former schoolboys giving hot pursuit. The camera operator's voice, obviously a young woman, can be heard giving encouragement to the crowd to do something to the little perverted freak. Soun looked at Genma. Genma looked at Soun. Genma quietly left and returned with a backpack. Soun hefted his own backpack. With a nod to each other they exited the front door.

Happosai ran by, pausing just long enough to target the two fathers and then race ahead of the pack of schoolgirls.

Genma, now a 17 year old woman with pale skin and very dark hair, looked at Soun, now bearing a strong resemblance to his eldest daughter. Soun exchanged a miserable glance with Genma. Turning around they went back to the shogi board.

Kasumi, ever helpful, found a few things of hers that would fit her father better than that tacky brown gi. Now why did her father immediately start to cry upon seeing the dress?

The night went otherwise relatively peacefully, up until Genma realized that his wife Nodoka was likely to take this in a very unpleasant manner.

============='_^==========================

Ranma waved as the boat left. The "Myou No Maru" was one of the weirder ships she'd been on, but the crew had just assumed that Ranma-chan was just another Chinese Amazon. There had apparently been others, tired of rural life, tired of having to accept their lot in life, or just tired of taking orders from elders like Cologne, and off went another of the Amazons, to find a place for herself in the world at large.

Some came back, unhappy with the societies they passed through. Some didn't. Whether they had died or found a place of their own, the crew of the the little smuggler/fishing vessel didn't know.

Ranma-chan suspected that the crewmen DID know what had happened to some of those missing Amazons, and that the Amazons in question had either adapted to life in the outside world or were just afraid to go back and face the Elders.

Pulling her backpack up on one shoulder, Ranma-chan started down the path that the first mate had stated would lead to a village that they did business with. One of the villages that supplied items that weren't traded in normal society. Instant Jusenkyo water, love potions, cursed items, "genuine" Amazon fetishes, and the like weren't actually illegal but weren't something reputable dealers wanted any part of. Hence the smugglers in the "gray market."

Just having a Jusenkyo curse had "proven" that he was of the Amazon village - one of the runaway men who was likely tired of being beaten on without being allowed to fight back. That she had denied it, and refused to speak Chinese had been further "proof" that the original conclusion had been correct.

Ranma desperately hoped the village had something to eat besides fish...

"Tsubasa, you look so cute in that dress," Ukyou said with a bright smile. "Konatsu, that's very pretty on you."

Both women blushed at Ukyou's praises, Tsubasa regarding the entire event as a nightmare that she could only hope would be over soon.

Konatsu regarded this as a birth defect that had literally been washed away, finally. No doubt Ukyou would come to appreciate her more now.

A small pow-wow had been held in the Tendo dojo, with a lot of people deciding what the heck to do about Happosai.

One of the most unexpected reactions had been Cologne. Now young and attractive again, it had been expected that she would have welcomed the change. Instead she had started out being thoroughly pissed. She was gradually adapting to the concept, but still wanted to catch "Happi" and soak him in his own springwater. At least that's how she wanted to START.

Daisuke sniffled. "... and my mother thinks it's cute, she says she'd always wanted a daughter anyway, and..."

"...and bought you all sorts of cute little outfits, right?" Hiroshi finished.

"You too?" Gosunkugi felt part of a group, which was nice, but really wished it wasn't under these sort of circumstances.

"Spatula girl such good friend," sniffled Shampoo. "With Ranma away, Shampoo never see what good person Spat- Ukyou is."

"I am the Blue Thun.. aw screw it. I look more like the Blue Rose..."

"So why ARE you wearing one of your sister's fuku?"

"It's not like SHE ever wears it. Besides, have you seen how often that kendo outfit pops open?" Tate-chan looked pained.

"Oh, Dr Tofu, you look so cute like that."

"Oh, Kasumi, heh heh."

"Order, please," said Akane, rapping a little mallet on the podium. "We know the little lech is out there blasting people with his water cannon until Ranma shows up and he can get his revenge."

Sayuri looked up from where she was monitoring a pocket radio. "They just had an update, Happosai just hit a group of police officers in downtown Tokyo. They're giving chase."

"They'll never catch him." Cologne stood up. "They failed to catch him after he crashed that diplomatic party and spiked the punch bowl with this Jusenkyo water."

Everyone nodded at that. That had turned into a debacle when Happi had run into a crowded shopping mall.

Sayuri continued. "The announcer says that over six hundred people have been affected so far."

"Tokyo is just getting to be too much," Yuka said to Nabiki.

"Yeah, you used to know where you stand." Nabiki felt a sudden urge and excused herself. "Uhm, Kasumi, I think I'll go make some snacks, do you mind?"

Kasumi nodded but looked puzzled. Nabiki wanted to cook? Kasumi was just hoping that she wouldn't charge TOO much.

"I'm just glad I cut school today," said one young man just before he was beaten into the floor.

--------------------*_*----------

Happosai looked at his last remaining gallon of cursewater. Where was Ranma? He'd have to abandon this plot soon, and he just couldn't admit failure at this point.

A single liter of the undiluted full-strength water was enough to curse one individual permanently. 3.78 liters to the gallon. He'd managed to curse an awful lot of people.

Maybe he'd gotten a little carried away, but self-restraint was not one of his strengths.

Happosai returned his gaze to the schoolyard below his perch atop the clocktower. "Where are you, Ranma?"

He'd watched from a ventilation shaft the fun at the ambassadorial party as the guests drank of the punch bowl that he had tainted. Upon hearing them talk of the "tingly" flavor, he had known that it was working though not as quickly or as obviously as immersion would.

It had taken an hour for the first guest to start manifesting the symptoms. Then had come the panic, as more and more of the guests began to change.

Happosai grinned at the memory. Ah, but that one especially had been so sweet. There was a manhunt for Ranma, and now one for Happosai after the name had come to light from an anonymous tip.

Since it had come immediately after the reward was posted, but before the reward had become common knowledge, Happosai knew that it had Nabiki that had given the police information about him. He'd have his revenge on HER soon enough.

A patrol car drove up to the front of the school and Happosai ducked back into the shadows.

----------------^_^;;---------------

Ranma finished stacking the crates, collected his money, and started out for a dinner at the little diner across the street. Unlike the Amazon Village this one was fairly near the coast and was relatively modern.

The food was simple fare, but cheap and plenty of it. He loved the "All You Can Eat" special, though the crowd that developed as he went through enough food to feed most of the village was unnerving.

Ranma sat back after nearly an hour and smiled. He wondered how Akane was doing, then scowled. Why was he thinking about an uncute tomboy anyway?

The truth was, he did miss her. He missed talking to Ukyou. He even missed Shampoo, though he wouldn't admit the last one.

They were all better off without him anyway, wasn't that what Akane was always saying? How much she wanted him gone, out of her life, and that she wished she had never met him? He couldn't do anything about the last one, but he HAD done the first two.

Maybe he ought to at least send a postcard, letting everyone know that he was OK. He smiled. Yeah, that would be good. That he was going to Jusenkyo and finally going to get CURED.

Ranma looked over at the selection of postcards and finally selected one that showed the harbor of Hong Kong. Who to send it to? His father. No, he didn't owe HIM anything. Akane? Nah, she'd probably just get pissed over something in her own head. Nabiki? She'd charge everyone for news about him. Kasumi?

The idea clicked. Kasumi would make sure everyone knew, and wouldn't charge exorbitant fees. Yeah, this could work.

There WAS a cure to Jusenkyo. Master Po had mentioned that there were pools and springs for each basic type of magic. Some were hidden, some only appeared under certain circumstances and some had magical protections.

Ryugenzawa had the Spring Of Life- curative magic. Jusenkyo embodied change or Transformation magic. Master Po, restaurateur and Chinese Mage, had mentioned another two springs that he knew of: one in Malaysia that embodied the magic of Transportation, and another hidden one in a place called Sedona which was a pool of Divination.

Setting down to write, Ranma outlined where he was and what he was doing. Drawing on his vague memories of what had gone on when he left the dojo, he made some basic assumptions.

Akane had been pounding on him, saying how much she hated him. Nabiki had sold him out again, which proved how much contempt SHE had for him. There had been the new fiancee, that he mostly remembered being sold out by his father again.

Conclusion: he'd been sold out by Nabiki and his father and then thrown out of the dojo. This made perfect sense to Ranma based on the fragmented memories he still had of that night.

Unfortunately for Ranma, it was not accurate.

---------------^_^;;-------------