Chapter 14: New Relationship

(Temporary Author's Notes: I would recommend re-reading the previous chapter and specifically the section when Ranma returns back to camp. There have been some major changes since its initial release, and they substantially affect the circumstances and tone of this chapter.)

Ranma trudged to Lillian.

The promised day had arrived.

This was going to be the day she learned the Umisenken.

It had taken weeks of preparation, but it was finally here. Ranma was full of excitement. Her stomach felt twisted, and a general flavor of foreboding enveloped her.

This was going to be the day she and Genma burgled the Ogasawara mansion.

The night of sleep had taken the sharper edge off of her reluctance, nearing dread, but the constricting weight still pressed upon her, tainting everything it touched with a bleak ambiance. The morning sunlight was dim, the nearby flowers had acquired a grayish tint, and the air surrounding her somehow felt stagnant.

This was going to be the day Ranko Sugita disappeared.

She could finally be done with the daily routine. No more changing into her sailor uniform. No more amiable greetings of "gokigenyou." No more chatting with Yoshino about whatever topic of interest came up. No more delicious shared lunches with Shimako. No more random events The Three Roses happened to arrange. No more exquisitely catered dinners. No more short hours spent with Sachiko.

Ranma sighed.

This was going to be the day of the festival.

Throughout the campus around Lillian, the cumulation of weeks of preparation, and a day of frantic exertions, had proverbially exploded. Stands, mascots, and balloons which heretofore had been glimpsed in passing were now on full display. Even this early, a few girls carried signs saying to visit the test of courage with the Third-year Wisteria Group, and the curry restaurant with the Second-year Cherry Blossom Group, and the martial arts demonstration the judo team was putting on. As time continued, more and more advertisements appeared as well. Girls dressed in armor suggested seeing the upcoming kendo demonstration, and Minako shouted out through a newspaper wrapped as a megaphone while Mami concurrently went around interviewing visitors.

The energy throughout the grounds were as contagious as it was bountiful. Much like during a fight, Ranma let her other concerns get pushed aside in favor of the immediacy of the moment. If this was to be the last day of Ranko Sugita, then she would make the most of it.

Along the side of the walkway was a stand of newspapers. Copies of the Lillian Kawaraban were plentiful and readily available. On the top of its front page was a map of the entire school and a key describing what was at each location. The newspaper club's location had been particularly highlighted, and there was a prominent advertisement on a sidebar: "Who is Lillian's idol? Who is Mr. Lillian? Which soeur pair is the best? You decide! Come vote with the newspaper club!"

Below the fold of the newspaper was a schedule of upcoming events, including locations and a short description of each of them. The Yamayurikai's play of Cinderella was of particular emphasis here, with a note that Sachiko would now be playing the role of the prince and how more details could be found inside.

All of that had to wait until later, though. The first and most important thing was Ranma's work shift in the First-year Chrysanthemum Group's cafe.

There was already a small queue of girls waiting when Ranma arrived at the classroom, and she was barely able to change into her red and black dress before the doors open. The waiting girls quickly filed into the cafe, where they were met by a resounding shout of "Welcome!" from the Ranma and the others.

As the shift went on, the crowd only grew larger. Ranma was definitely the most popular of the servers, too, and she was kept busy the whole time taking orders and ferrying things back and forth between the customers and the back of the classroom. Once, at a customer's request, she said and then subsequently shouted, "Off with her head!" She had no idea what that was about, but it was met with much approval from around the room.

Once Rie had arrived to replace her, Ranma was free to explore the festival. The only other obligation she had was for the Yamayurikai play, but they weren't meeting until half past noon, so she had a few hours to explore the area.

The first place to visit was the kendo demonstration. Along the way, she saw a moderately-sized group of girls in front of the statue of the hooded woman. That caught Ranma's attention, mainly because she spotted Shimako among the crowd. Shimako seemed heavily engaged with the discussion happening there, though, so Ranma left her alone and continued onward.

As she neared the secondary gym, Ranma caught sight of Sachiko. It was a pointed reminder of the upcoming event for the evening, and despite her best efforts, she felt a corresponding spike into her heart. She was torn. Part of her wanted to rush forward to join Sachiko; she liked spending time with her, and this would be her last chance. Another part of her wanted to stay away; she didn't like the feelings the reminder engendered within her, and staying away would ensure she didn't say anything inappropriate.

It was a moot point, though, because Sachiko spotted Ranma at the same time as Ranma had spotted her. She nodded to Ranma and then approached.

"Gokigenyou," Sachiko said.

"Gokigenyou."

Sachiko slightly tilted her head and asked, "Is something wrong?"

There was, and that something wrong was Sachiko, just like before. Unlike that previous time, though, Ranma couldn't say anything. Even without Genma's warning, it was just common sense to not say anything to a target prior to perpetuating a burglary.

Ranma put on the best smile she could. She said, "No, nothing's wrong. The festival's really fun, isn't it? Teeheehee."

Sachiko's eyebrows furrowed in response. She said, "It is. What did you have planned to do today?"

Panic gripped Ranma. She immediately wondered, and worried, how could Sachiko have known? Ranma knew she hadn't told Sachiko anything; she herself hadn't even known about Genma's designs until the previous night. Were they at risk? Did they need to be aborted? That last though brought with it a spark of hope.

Still, Ranma had been through enough experiences to know that no good ever came out of confessing. When all else failed, deny everything. She said, "Nothing at all. Teeheehee."

Sachiko's eyebrow furrowed deeper, and a slight frown touched her cheek as well. She asked, "Nothing? I thought you wanted to go visit the curry cafe that the Second-year Cherry Blossom Group was running."

Relief, and disappointment, washed through Ranma. She had entirely misunderstood what Sachiko had meant. Sachiko hadn't been asking about the upcoming robbery; she had been asking about Ranma's plans for the festival.

"That's right. I did. I mean, I do. Teeheehee," Ranma said. She reflexively scratched the back of her head.

"Anything else?"

"Not really," Ranma said. She had mainly planned to just wander around the hallways and see what she saw.

"Then why don't we look around the festival together after the kendo demonstration?" Sachiko asked. "I was also interested in seeing how their curry cafe turned out."

Ranma was once again faced with the dilemma about whether to go with Sachiko or to stay away. She instantly made her decision, though. She had wanted to make the most of this last day as Ranko Sugita, and she couldn't think of anything she'd rather do than spend it with Sachiko. The only potential danger would be if she accidentally gave some hint of her upcoming nocturnal activities, but avoiding that shouldn't be that difficult.

"Sure," Ranma said as they walked into the secondary gym.

The kendo demonstration proved to be very similar to the demonstration Rei had shown in the welcoming ceremony a few days earlier, albeit more extended and with more girls demonstrating. The main thing that Ranma got out of the show was that most of the club members were amateurs; half of them had obviously-exploitable hesitations in their movements, and Ranma was positive a couple of them were holding their swords too loosely. Disarming, let alone defeating, them in a fight would have been a simple matter.

Once the demonstration ended, Sachiko led Ranma out of the gym and back to the main school building. Apparently the photography exhibit was definitely worth visiting, according to one of Sachiko's classmates. On the way there, though, Ranma heard a crash and a bell ringing out from one of the classrooms. It piqued her curiosity, and she poked her head into the doorway of the First-year Camellia Group classroom. Inside, Hisako was stacking some plastic cups on a table at the far end of the room, and another girl Ranma didn't recognize was picking up a tennis ball which was bouncing around on the ground behind it.

"Welcome!" a third girl near the entrance enthusiastically greeted Ranma and Sachiko. "Come in. Come in. We're doing a ball-tossing game. Roll some dice and test your skill."

"You want to try it?" Sachiko asked.

"Sure," Ranma said.

Sachiko went first. She rolled two huge foam dice on the ground and got a 5. One of the girls led her to a line taped on the ground about one third of the way across the room from the table, and she handed Sachiko two tennis balls. Sachiko tossed the first ball and hit the center of the stack of plastic cups, knocking all six of them down to the ground.

"Winner!" the girls in the room all cheered, and one of them loudly rang a bell.

The girls reset the stand and then it was Ranma's turn. She rolled an 11. Ranma was led to a different line almost all the way across the room.

"Good luck," the girl said, and she handed Ranma the two tennis balls.

Ranma bounced the first ball against the ground, took careful aim, and then pitched it across the room. It hit the bottom center cup dead on, knocking it straight out the back. The other five cups were left precariously stacked up in an inverted-V shape.

"Oh..." several girls said.

"That's unusual," Sachiko said. "Why don't you again?"

Ranma smirked to herself in response. She then took the second ball and more casually tossed it across the room. It smashed into the formation, knocking the remaining cups down.

"Winner!" the girls in the room cheered, and the bell once again rang out.

Ranma and Sachiko continued onward to the photography club exhibit. There were a few other girls inside, some solo and some pairs, looking around the displays which had been set up around the room like an art gallery. The most prominently featured picture was the "Rose Garden" photograph, and Sachiko approved of it. Ranma and Sachiko also stopped by a large display on the side of the room and had Tsutako take a commemorative photograph of them together.

The newspaper club's room was directly adjacent to the photography club's room, and Ranma passed by it on the way out. Inside it were numerous girls, all sitting around and filling out survey sheets. Ranma and Sachiko did not stop there, though. Lunch beckoned instead.

The front of the Second-year Cherry Blossom Group classroom had several large signs announcing the acclaim and preferences of the members of the Yamayurikai, and there was a moderate queue of girls there waiting to enter. It took a few minutes, but Ranma and Sachiko were soon seated. The rich smell of curry filled the room, not unlike the ripple of excitement which floated through the air at their entrance. Several sidelong glances were sent in Ranma's direction, and she was sure she heard some whispering coming from behind the curtains in the back of the room.

Sachiko ordered the preferred curries for them both. This meant that she ordered one of both of the curries for Ranma. These were brought out in short order, and Ranma was immediately delighted. Not only did she receive two orders of curry, they were heaped up to nearly overflowing. While the server exhibited all the polite decorum that was expected, the whispers in the back of the room had been joined by some titters of laughter. Ranma glanced back and saw several girls were peaking out from around the curtain there, but at her glance, they quickly dodged out of sight.

The curry tasted even better than the samples she had had earlier in the week, and lunch disappeared quickly, Ranma being just behind Sachiko in that regard.

After that, Ranma and Sachiko wandered around the festival a bit more. They saw the exhibitions that the inventions club, the handicrafts club, and the fine arts club had created. They stopped by several of the activities that the different classes had put together, too. They were so distracted that by the time they finally made it to the primary gym for preparations, they were the last two to arrive.

"Where were you? I said we were to meet at half past noon," Youko confronted them as they entered. She was already in her full costume as the queen, including her makeup and the crown.

"Onee-sama, you are acting more like the queen from 'Snow White,'" Sachiko said.

"You have the nerve to say that? When you're late, you should apologize first."

"I'm sorry," Sachiko said. She gave a slight bow.

"That's better. Now hurry up and get changed. We only have an hour left before the play starts."

As Ranma started taking off her school uniform, Yoshino approached her. She had apparently only arrived a few minutes earlier, as she still had the day dress of Sister C in her hands. She asked, "So where were you two, anyway?"

"Around the festival. We did a ball-tossing game, went to the photography club exhibit, ate some curry, saw the inventions club, and a bunch of other stuff," Ranma said. She looked around for some place to hang her uniform, and then decided to just swap it out on the hanger the transformation dress was hanging from.

"All that? It sounds like you had a lot of fun," Yoshino said.

"Yeah," Ranma said enthusiastically. Not only that, she thought back to the past two weeks and everything that had happened since she had first entered Lillian. She really had had fun. "Yeah. I did," Ranma repeated much more ruefully.

Yoshino tilted her head and her eyes narrowed. She asked, "Is everything okay? Did you get into an argument with Sachiko-sama?"

It was exactly that, insofar as Ranma was about to steal from her and then leave forever. "No, nothing like that," Ranma said. She lightly slapped her cheeks with both her hands and tried to force herself to cheer up. There was no reason to spoil the half-day still remaining with things she could do nothing about. The play was about to happen, too, and she didn't want to ruin it for everybody else.

There was more of a scramble to prepare for the play than could have been hoped for; beards, shoes, and crowns had somehow been misplaced since the day before and needed to be found. There were also the finishing touches, with Eriko doing Shimako's hair and Sachiko helping Ranma with her makeup.

By the time they had finished preparing, a distinct murmuring could be heard. Ranma chanced a peek around the curtain, and she saw that the gym was filled to capacity. All the chairs were taken, and there was even a line of girls standing in the back.

"One minute to go," Youko said in a quiet whisper. "Places please."

Ranma walked on stage and took a position by the living room window. Yoshino, Shimako, and Eriko took their places just off-stage.

"30 seconds."

The lights in the main section of the gym dimmed.

"10 seconds." Youko then fell silent and counted down with her fingers.

Ranma cast her gaze out the window and to the horizon she could imagine was in the distance.

The curtain pulled open.

Ranma took a deep breath, and declared to the entire gym, "It's good that the rain's stopped..."

There was the introduction of the step-family, the announcement of the ball, the fight, the departure of the step-family, and the appearance of the wizard. The magical transformation went through flawlessly, Ranma using the cover of the smoke to transform her dress, do her hair, and slip on her shoes. The play continued through the ball and Cinderella's meeting with the prince. The dance was more ad hoc than had been scripted, but Ranma trusted in Sachiko's lead, and they made it through without any problems. It went on with the escape scene, and the prince's search. The finale found Sachiko fitting the silver shoe on Ranma's foot, and Cinderella and the prince lived happily ever after.

The gym erupted in applause. At the curtain call, the Yamayurikai had to bow multiple times before the crowd settled enough to wrap things up.

And just like that, the festival drew to a close. A bonfire had been set up in the center of the sports field, and a small collection of girls were playing some music from nearby. An accordion, a harmonica, a violin, and a pianica made for a strange quartet, but the four girls made it work.

Some girls were dancing in a large ring which had formed around the fire. Others were wandering around the area in pairs. Still more were just sitting around and enjoying the atmosphere. All of them were trying to cling to the last bits of revelry and extend them, even as its end was in sight.

Ranma loitered at the edge of the field, doing the same. Now that the activities of the day had concluded, there was nothing left to distract her from the upcoming truth: she was leaving.

Forever.

That was a good thing. She thought it was a good thing. It had to be a good thing. The entire purpose for coming to Lillian in the first place had been to learn the Umisenken, and that goal had finally been achieved. She just couldn't understand why, rather than the joy of success, or even the neutrality of inevitability, she felt resigned.

In a few short hours, Ranma would follow Genma to the Ogasawara mansion and proceed to take everything that happened to catch his fancy, as if they were mere balls of rice in a convenience store. That thought itself was also strange. Until recently, Ranma had never thought twice about taking whatever she needed; it was simply the way the world work. If she had been asked two weeks ago if she was willing to snatch a silver statue in order to learn a martial arts technique, she would have just asked which one. That was before Sachiko had welcomed her with hours of support and companionship.

Ranma didn't have the words to express it, but it felt wrong. It felt profusely wrong. It felt wrong to the point that she was even questioning their casual thefts of convenience stores, something she had done countless times throughout her life.

Still, it was the path she had set on two weeks earlier, even if she hadn't known it at the time. Moreover, it was for a martial arts technique, and that was the most valuable thing in the world. Wasn't it? It had to just be some temporary insanity which was causing her to question it. Two weeks ago, Ranma would have jumped at the offer, and she would still go through with it now. The last thing she wanted to do was to look back at this situation with regret. Besides, what else could she do?

"There you are." Sachiko's words interrupted Ranma's ruminations. "Do you have a few minutes to talk?"

"I guess so," Ranma said. Genma had told her to return early, but she didn't want things to end. It was just a few hours. The Umisenken could wait a few hours. The fantasy that was Ranko Sugita's life could continue for just a few more hours.

Sachiko led Ranma away from the field and through the quiet school grounds. She came to a stop in front of the statue of the hooded woman near the front of the school.

"Here," Sachiko said. She handed over a small carton. "It's apple juice." Despite her causal words, Ranma thought Sachiko seemed nervous somehow.

Ranma took the carton, and Sachiko tapped her own against the one Ranma held in a toasting gesture.

"To the success of the play," Sachiko said. She was definitely nervous, although Ranma couldn't tell what it was about her that cause her to think that. She certainly looked normal enough.

"Cheers," Ranma said in return, and she stuck her straw into her carton.

"Actually, I was looking for you earlier. With all of the busyness after the play ended, I didn't have a chance to talk to you," Sachiko said.

"It was crazy, wasn't it," Ranma said more than asked. The cleanup after the play had been treated as more of an afterthought, which had resulted in a commotion which was twice as messy and chaotic as the much more complicated but deliberate preparations had been.

Sachiko fell quiet. The silence extended for a few seconds. And then a few more.

"This is a bit awkward to ask," Sachiko said. Now she was fidgeting with her hands, and it was much more obvious that she was nervous. "That is... I'd like you to return my rosary to me."

"What?" Ranma asked. She shook her head. She must have misheard.

"I said, 'I'd like you to return my rosary to me,'" Sachiko said, confirming what Ranma had thought she had heard. "We both know my giving you my rosary was a farce, and I want to end it. I actually wanted to end it for a while now, but with the play going on, that was impossible. Now that it's over, I finally can."

Ranma felt smothered. It was like somebody had stolen her chest, leaving her cold and empty inside. She had to focus just to breath.

She had known that Sachiko had only given her her rosary to get out of playing Cinderella and to avoid her fiance. Even so, Ranma had felt like something had grown between them. She certainly felt something towards Sachiko. She had never imagined that the practices, the dinners, the sleepover, and everything else had just been pragmatic extensions of Sachiko's own selfish request.

Apparently they had been.

"I..." Ranma's stomach cramped, and she felt on the verge of being sick. It was as if she had been punched in the gut, only twice as painful. "I see." Her throat caught, and she had pause to steady her breathing. "I understand."

Ranma reached around her neck and pulled out the physical evidence of the connection between her and Sachiko, worn every day for the past week and a half.

She held it out and dropped into Sachiko's waiting hand.

It was probably for the best, Ranma reasoned to herself, trying to rationalize away the pang inside of her. Ranko Sugita was about to disappear into the night. Ranma Saotome was about to rob Sachiko's house. Severing that loose end had to be a good thing. It had to help the situation somehow.

Even if Ranma still felt horribly wrong about everything.

Ranma turned away. She had to go. Somewhere. Anywhere. Not here. Genma had said to return to camp early. That seemed like a good idea. She needed to lie down.

"Wait! No!" Sachiko lunged forward and grabbed Ranma's shoulder. "That's not what I meant."

Ranma turned back around.

"I mean... that came out all wrong." Sachiko shook her head and slumped her shoulders. She said, "I'm sorry. I've completely messed this all up. Let me it try again." She took a deep breath and straightened herself. "As I was saying, my giving you my rosary a week and a half ago was a farce. We both know that. I had no idea who you were back then, and I didn't care. It was merely a gambit I took because I wanted somebody, anybody, to take over my role of Cinderella.

"However, in the days since then, I've come to cherish you and the time I've spent with you. Now, I truly do want you to be my petite soeur, and I want to do this correctly. The soeur ceremony is a sacred ritual which I have abused, but I would like to set that right. So, now that the play is over, now that there are no more ulterior motives confusing the issue, now that we are once again two unconnected people, I wish to ask you...

"May I place this around your neck?"

Sachiko once again held her rosary out in both of her hands towards Ranma.

Despite having worn it around her neck for the past 10 days, Ranma had never really looked at it before. It was a delicate, silver cross, embossed with a rim around the edge so it looked like a cross within a cross. Attached to the top of the pendant was a long chain of beads approximately a meter long, themselves also silver and periodically interspersed with larger beads. It reflected the faint lights of Tokyo around them, sparkling in the autumn night.

It was the most beautiful thing Ranma had ever seen before in her life.

The whiplash of emotions swirled around Ranma. She wasn't being rejected. Rather the reverse.

"Yes."

A few more hours. She still had a few more hours. The magic could continue for just a few more hours.

"Thank you."

Sachiko reached her hands over Ranma's head and once again draped the light cross around Ranma's neck.

Ranma spontaneously jumped forward and engulfed Sachiko in a hug. Sachiko tensed for a moment and then returned the embrace.

The two walked hand-in-hand back to the main gathering in the sports field, and they joined in the festivities there. The brassy, multi-tonal accordion stood out in the ensemble as the strange quartet played "Maria-sama's Soul." Sachiko pulled Ranma forward, and the pair began to dance an improvised waltz. It caught the attention of everybody nearby, although Ranma barely noticed them as she focused on the interplay between her and Sachiko

Hours blinked away.

The fire burned low. The musicians packed away their instruments. The fire burned out. The crowd dispersed.

The festival had finally come to an end.

All of the students dispersed back to whatever place they called home. In Ranma's case, she was leaving for good, back to camp, and then to wherever Genma's friend was. She had no idea where that was, only that it was not here.

The sky was dark, but the ever-present street lights provided enough illumination for Ranma to take the familiar lonely trip along the roads back to the quiet temple. She gave a perfunctory check around for witnesses, not that she expected to see any. Once she had confirmed that the area was empty, she made her way past the vegetation and into the camp.

She was greeted by some soft snoring from the tent. Ranma made her way over there and opened the flap, confirming that Genma was flat on his back on his bedroll.

Genma's quiet snoring stopped, and he cracked his eye open in response to Ranma's intrusion. He said, "There you are. I said to be back hours ago."

"I was busy," Ranma said. She started pulling off her uniform. The weeks of practice made it simple, even in the dimly murky darkness.

Genma scoffed. He said, "Foolish boy. Get some sleep. We're leaving soon." He then turned over and the snoring resumed.

Ranma changed clothes and fell upon her cold bedroll. Traveling with Genma had taught her to take advantage of whatever opportunity presented itself because it was impossible to know what the next day would bring. That slice of jerky could be the last thing to eat for days, and sleep now because tomorrow she may find herself being chased by a wolf.

Still, she had no idea how she was going to get any rest. The festival, and in particular her time with Sachiko in the end, had left her body feeling electric. Meanwhile, the pervasive sense of wrongness endured within her, leaving her mind twitching with even more restless energy than her body had.

The seconds, minutes, and hours trickled by until Genma stirred and stood up. He kicked at Ranma. "Get up, boy. It's time to go."

Dodging away from the kick was trivial; nothing even approaching the semblance of a nap had come close to Ranma.

"Get dressed. I'll explain things as we go," Genma said. He tossed some beige clothes at Ranma, which was subsequently followed by a long, dark jacket. They matched a similar outfit that Genma was wearing. The net effect was that Genma blended in with the evening darkness surrounding them.

Genma did a quick check for spectators and then led Ranma out of the camp and down the streets. He jogged through the night roads with a certainty which made it clear that he knew exactly where he was going.

"The most important part of the Umisenken is to not be noticed. The sneaky thief is the undetected thief. You will need to hide all of your intentions as you act. That's why I couldn't tell you what the end goal was at the start; you'd have given yourself away. That won't work anymore in the future, so you'll need to start practicing suppressing your emotions. If you do this right, you will fade away and be all but invisible to your opponents."

What Genma said made sense to Ranma. Apparently what she was feeling was expected. She tried to suppress the sense of violation within her as she followed behind him. This was what she had been working towards for the past two weeks, and her moment of success was at hand. It was time to leave behind the world of Lillian Private Girls' School and go back to being Ranma Saotome, itinerant martial artist.

In the distance, a clock struck midnight.

Temporary Author's Notes:

Thank you very much to everybody who took the time to write a review or otherwise provided feedback. I very much appreciate all of it.

Which leads to the obvious thing: as mentioned at the top of this chapter, there was a major change to the previous chapter. I had never been thrilled with Ranma being completely oblivious of the upcoming robbery, but I had just accepted it as a plot convenience to progress the story. However, numerous readers had objections to this, to the point that I was actually surprised at the number of comments I received. That, plus a helpful suggestion about one way to handle it from one of the readers, resulted in this rewrite... and to be clear, it is a rewrite.

This chapter was originally expected to have a much lighter tone than it does. Well, that's not exactly true, either. In the original outline, I had thought Ranma would know that this would be the last day in Lillian, so it had some touches of melancholy to it. However, as I have mentioned several times in the past, as the actual story came out, a great deal of circumstances and connotations changed, to the point that Ranma was now ignorant of this. (This is very similar to how I had not originally planned on having Ranma come to the conclusion that all of this was to learn some verbal martial arts, and thus not care about blending in anymore.) So, by the time I got to this chapter "for real," I was expecting it to be a light and fluffy chapter, with Ranma only having a sudden discovery of the burglary on the way to the Ogasawara mansion.

Now that Ranma actually figured out the burglary the night before, though, you see the final result; I would not call this chapter "light" anymore.

For how Ranma acted in the festival, I tried to take some inspiration from the Full Body Cat Tongue incident, when the Tendo family suggests Ranma go to a festival and forget about training for a while. That's part of why I feel comfortable with Ranma acting so carefree. If she can put aside being trapped as a girl and finding hot water extremely painful, then she should be able to ignore her immediate circumstances here as well Ranma is trying to be so while the festival is ongoing.

I was torn about how much detail to go into for the festival, and especially between Ranma and Sachiko going around together. There is a trade-off between "this is character and relationship building" and "this is pointless filler." My inclination was to make this section even shorter than it is. For example, I have a suspicion the whole ball-toss game should be cut. However, I wasn't sure where to draw that line, so we have what we have here. I'm curious if I should have gone into more detail or less detail.

This chapter also feels a bit more fragmented and disjointed than typical. There is the introduction, with all of those short and repetitive paragraphs. To a lesser extent, there is also the section where Sachiko is retracting and then re-offering her rosary. This scattered feeling was intentional (or at least acceptable) because I was trying to convey the feeling of Ranma's internal mental state. I'm not sure if that worked or not, though.

Oh, and one last thing. I also did a minor tweak in Chapter 12 for the trip to the Ogasawara mansion. I may have overstated the color of the sunset, so I just removed it.

Anyway, that's another chapter out. I'd love to hear what you think of it. I really enjoy hearing feedback, be it general opinions or be it ideas of how to improve things (that in turn including everything from spelling and grammar errors to pointing out potential plot holes or violations of canon). Regardless, though, I hope you liked this latest chapter, and that you stick around as Ranma finally learns the Umisenken... and maybe some other stuff happens, who knows?

Last Updated: August 6, 2020