Typically, when asked to describe Happosai the first thing to come up would probably be how much of a completely unashamed pervert he is. Or his age. Or his incredible martial arts prowess. Let’s try that again.
Among the first three qualities one might use to describe Happosai are his age, his martial arts ability and his perversion. Truly, all three - if represented in a metaphorical stat sheet - would be rather ridiculously highly valued, as a consequence of very specifically targeted stat dumping on each level up. Charisma? Almost a negative value. Compassion? None to speak of. Almost every other stat on the metaphorical sheet would be quite low with no other number even approaching the described four.
Except for one vice that he treasured almost as much as lust. Oh, sure. That was his main vice that overrode his every decision, but a man cannot live on one vice alone. Other things must provide a sense of motivation for him. In Happosai’s case, his secondary vice was… Pettiness.
Oh. But he was so very, very petty. It’s odd how often that’s forgotten. While he will certainly go out of his way to grope a cute girl at almost literally any opportunity that presents itself, it simply has to be understood that when Happosai was wronged a dark aura would rise that would send a chill down the spine of the wickedest of devils, demons and imps.
The surprising part is that he tends towards psychological torment rather than the physical. His primary target is Ranma Saotome under normal circumstances, and considering his twin vices that makes so much sense pointing it out is practically redundant. His girl form is hot, hot, hot and… No matter what form he’s in Ranma is a rather abrasive person.
Sure. He can act nice when he wants to, but he quite often simply doesn’t want to. This is because Ranma also suffers from a vice or two of his own. Pride. Vanity, of a sort. Not for his appearance, though god knows he’s fully aware of how physically attractive he is in both forms. No, no. Vanity in his martial arts ability. He’s fully confident going into pretty much every fight he’s ever been in, no matter the challenge. Even if it’s got freaky stipulations that he doesn’t know anything about until the fight is already ongoing. This pride makes Ranma lash out quite often at people he feels - at that time - deserve it. Whether they do or not. He will only apologise for his behaviour if it is really quite obviously more his fault than the other person. And I mean transparent as recently cleaned glass.
Now, obviously he has other vices than that but… This is the one we are primarily interested in at the moment. Considering what has been mentioned about both of these martial artists, it only makes sense that they would get on like a house on fire. Thing about houses on fire? They tend to become smouldering ruins if left unattended.
So. Happosai does what more members of his class have dreamed of doing than would ever admit it to Ranma’s face, and gropes Ranma’s cute girl form. Indulging in his lustful nature. Naturally Ranma, indulging in his vanity, cannot let this lie. He lashes out at the old man, exacting revenge in some way or other. This raises Happosai’s hackles, and the ancient martial artist retaliates. In the process indulging in his other vice: Spite.
Hardly a complicated relationship, particularly when compared to the various others in the Furinkan area. In many ways Happosai has the edge of experience, making him a little bit more canny in dodging away from Ranma’s own retaliation. He was more skilled. More knowledgable in martial arts. And he also had a lifelong collection of trinkets and items which did <i>so</i> much stuff you would hardly ever believe it. Hell. Happosai barely knew what half of it actually did. Most of it, well, he was finding out by rooting through it in his downtime. Jogging his memory little by little. Most of it was garbage, you see. Too situational to be useful, or made an effect he didn’t care for, or he didn’t even know if it did anything at all.
Then there were items like this one. A simple-looking bracelet and nothing more. At least, on first appearance that’s what it was…
Now, on this particular day Happosai was engaging in a change in strategy. His favourite target was typically Ranma but he did rather like a little variety in his groping targets too, which led to him focusing on the tomboyish Akane from time to time. Why not? She was very pretty as well, but that wasn’t why he was dropping the bracelet outside Akane’s window with a little note reading “Sorry for earlier ~ Ranma” on top of it. No, no. This was a less direct than usual course of revenge. First thing she’d do is try the bracelet on, and then - Haha! The fun could begin!
A little rap on her window - curtains closed, damn the luck - and off he hopped towards the roof to hide and wait for the fun to begin. He could see it now. The reactions they’d have. He heard the window open down below. He heard the gift being taken inside. He heard the window closing again. Perfect. He crept down and waited on the outside, listening intently for the expected reaction.
“Oh, how pretty!” Akane said. “It even fits, and -”
He heard the unmistakable sound of a magical discharge and fist pumped the air. Got her! Now she’d be stuck with the bracelet on her wrist until -
There was a knock on the door, and Happosai tensed up. Looks like showtime had arrived. Oh, if only he could see the look on their faces! This was going to be positively priceless!
<hr>
As previously discussed, Ranma Saotome is a very proud young man. Most people suffer defeat badly, but this is particularly true for him. He has to be the best. He was trained to be the best. Take a hundred or so ten-second random clips from his life from the moment he could run, splice them together and play some inspirational music over the result and you would have yourselves an uplifting training montage leading into the climax of a <i>Rocky</i> ripoff. Sure, the parts where he was a girl might confuse audiences that missed out on the Jusenkyo part, but that’s hardly the point right now.
Point is: What had started as a pragmatic intention to get a sort of cure for his curse had now become personal. More personal. It wasn’t even about the damn curse anymore. It was about getting the headband away from Akane at any cost.
He wasn’t even sure what had happened in the training hall earlier. There he was, full of confidence and focus. Then the second he laid eyes on her, it was like everything took on this weird filter. Thinking back, she was eating a banana. Talked to him briefly. Stood up, stretched and then walked out. That was it. He hadn’t done or said anything, just sat there like a damn idiot.
Like a damn horny idiot. Which made no sense at all. There was nothing sexy about that girl. She didn’t have any sex appeal to speak of. She was just a violent, uncouth tomboy that he happened to be engaged to because their fathers were complete idiots that didn’t get the hint. At best they were, maybe, friends? It was a complicated relationship but the one thing Ranma did know was the he did not, absolutely never under any circumstance -
“Oh, hello, Ranma!” Akane said, opening the door while holding a brush in her foot. Her leg lifted up behind her back and began to draw the brush back along her hair. “Was there something you wanted?”
The thought he’d been having before she opened the door completed itself before Ranma could even stop it: Want to have sex with Akane Tendo anywhere near as much as he wanted to right now. His gaze was fixated on her leg. Since when was she so… Flexible? Ranma followed her inside, Akane making rather deft little hops on her one remaining foot. She sat on her bed, continuing to use her foot to brush her hair while examining a bracelet on her wrist.
“This was such a thoughtful gift,” Akane said. “Thank you.”
“Huh?” Ranma blinked. “Gift? What?”
“Though really, if you were going to come in here in person to deliver it, you shouldn’t have left it outside my window first.”
Ranma felt something crawling up his body very, very quickly, and momentarily believed it to be a spider. Upon looking down, he realised it was Akane’s stray foot. The foot grabbed at his shirt, and before Ranma could stop her, Akane’s face had pushed forward to kiss him. On the cheek.
No, no, no! Stop that! You came here for a reason. Remember? You were gonna lay on the guilt trip and get her to give up the headband, then you were gonna - Wait. Wait! She was doing this deliberately to set him off his game! The sneaky little-! Oh! But he was gonna give her a piece of his mind!
“I’m so glad you understand,” Akane said with a sigh and a (not even remotely sexy, no, sir) stretch before he could really say anything at all. “I mean. I can take care of myself if I need to! Don’t question that! But… All those spells were really getting to me. They just kept on coming one after the other. It was getting kinda silly, you know?”
“Well, I do have to deal with this stupid curse every day,” he said rather pointedly. There! Now he would be able to use that to guilt her into -
“I guess… Tell you what,” Akane said, thoughtfully tapping her lips. “Maybe if we go back to that shop tomorrow, we can get another headband just like this one! That way, you won’t need to worry about your curse anymore and I get to keep this one. We’ll be a matching pair!”
“Y-yeah, I guess?” Ranma silently cursed as his guilt trip plan was rather neatly nipped in the bud. Well… Maybe if it turned out they couldn’t get another headband, this might be useful to making her feel even more guilty, and then - “Uh… Is that bracelet supposed to be glowing like that?”
- The bracelet dissolves, as its magic energy is absorbed into the headband. Akane goes all horny/goofy monkey again… This time the change is right before Ranma’s very eyes!
- Meanwhile, what happened with Shampoo?
- Happosai thinks about what the bracelet is meant to do, and wonders why nothing happened.
- The combination of the bracelet and the headband causes a freaky side effect that nobody expected.
- Something else
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