Story: Half Goddess Akane

 

 
And so it came to pass that the two young girls and the seasoned, grizzled and extremely awesome God from Japanese Mythology (which, of course, is the best of all mythologies) came to the little vacation home of the mighty Susano-O.

It was quite sudden, one moment they were still in the forest, and then the the next they were standing in front of a gate that resembled Akane’s own. Except far larger, more elaborate, and beautiful. With ornate carvings worthy of Heaven itself.

"Oh wow, this place is so grand that just us being here is manipulating the narration," Yuka said, her tone dripping with appropriate awe at the splendour she was beholding. "This place must be as big as Furinkan."

"Nerima, actually," Susano-O tsked, and wagged his indomitable finger. "You humans always have trouble with big numbers, don't you? As big as Furinkan, really now."

He pushed the gates open with his little finger, in the process displaying his majesty and glory as well as his great strength and humility, revealing a gigantic hallway reminiscent of an old Imperial palace, with every surface seeming to gleam, as though dirt dared not rest anywhere within.

"This can't be your 'small vacation home'," Akane said. She stepped within, showing appropriate trepidation. "I was expecting something a bit smaller than this."

"Really? My main home is as big as the sun." He paused, “Well, don’t tell my sister I described it that way. She may think I’m making a joke about her weight.”

Akane and Yuka looked to one another, sharing a look that said 'he must be joking', little realising that no, the great and powerful Susano-O was not engaged in hyperbole or exaggeration, his main home actually was as large as the sun. And yes, it really would be a bad idea if his sister heard he'd described it as being that large, because she's been on a diet recently and this is the lats thing that she needs. How clever of him to have that insight!

In any event, the three of them soon arrived in an old fashioned Japanese garden, replete with bridges, plants cut to look like smaller versions of a much bigger landscape - until you took a closer look and realised that it actually was that big, the perspective was really weird - and... Modern furniture, which some might say spoiled the aesthetic, but Susano-O was wise enough to recognise that sometimes you needed creature comforts to properly enjoy beauty.

"So? So? Is this where we learn how to get Akane as many worshippers as she rightly deserves?" Yuka asked, steam shooting out of her nose from the anticipation alone. Give her some credit, she's had a rough day - er, actually given how things turned out with that stupid ghost cat it wasn't just a bad day anymore was it?

"Yuka! I don't want people to worship me!" Akane huffed. "I want them to respect me."

"Ahahahahaha!" Susano-O laughed. "Yes, yes, a little respect is quite nice, and can get you a long way. However, things aren't quite that simple. Now... let's see, where did I leave that projector again?"

You left it in the storage shed after getting into that spat with -

"Ah, thank you, i've found it!" Susano-O said, making the narrator blush from being so useful to this God in his own domain. "Now, let's see, a bit of background for you, let me get this going for you. Ahem! To crib from a current major world religion a little, in the beginning - "

<i>"Ohhh, that's it baby, right there!"</i>

The projection was shut off almost immediately. Akane shot her grandfather the dirtiest of dirty looks, though it was still a lot cleaner than what had been projected onto the sky above. To be perfectly honest, he did have that one coming.

"Ahem! As I was saying!" Susano-O took a deep breath. "In the beginning! There we go. Swirling chaos and anarchy."

Up above, they could see exactly that. Chaos swirling around, random shapes moving ranodmly, then exploding and becoming something else entirely. Combining, splitting, growing, shrinking, dancing anarchy that left the girls feeling dizzy from watching.

"This randomness eventually gave rise to life, and when that happened the randomness needed to cut it out. With that sense, comes the Gods. The living personification of nature and order."

"So... Man created God?" Akane volunteered.



"I am grossly simplifying for the sake of explanation, it's actually really hard to tell which came first," Susano-O said. "We try not to let any theologians find out about this, it's not healthy for their state of mind."

"What about the atheists?" Yuka asked.

"They usually can't see us at all, or pretend we're something else, or stop being atheists. Depends on the person. Anyway! As you can see, humans need Gods for the world to make sense."

Indeed, they were now watching early man struggle with purpose, which appeared to be represented by a caveman asking another caveman why they hunt and forage, what the point of carving flint was, and honestly wouldn't it just be better if they caved each other's heads in and took their stuff?

"Humans are drawn to Gods," Susano-O continued, as a God randomly strolled along to where the cavemen were having the first philosophical debate. The two of them then immediately got on their knees and started to bow to the God, prostrating themselves in a quite ridiuclous over the top manner, while the God nervously rubbed the back of his head and looked around.

“Honestly it was a bit of a surprise, but hey.” Susano-O laughed, “Everybody wins I think. You get purpose in your lives, we get worshipped. Win, win!”

"And what do you get out of being worshipped?" Akane asked. "You don't just use it to boss people around, do you?"


"Well, this house for one thing," Susano-O said, gesturing around.  "The faith you humans have in us translates to currency. We use it to buy and sell things, and let's just say I've made some wise investments over the years."

"Do you still have a lot of believers?" Yuka asked.

"Sort of. My stories are still told, so people sort of suspend their disbelief, and that's technically a kind of faith. Not as potent as real religious  fervour, but it tides me over."

"So, how much is Akane worth?" Yuka asked, getting right to the heart of the matter.

"Oh, don't be silly, I only just awakened to being a sort of Goddess, I can't have -"

Susano-O lifted his mighty hand, and placed it on Akane's head. "Hrm, quite a lot more than a newborn arahitogami of her worldly station would have"

"Oh yeah?" Akane asked. "Well, not like it really matters but how much?"

"About equivalent to half a million yen, I'd say. "

Cue Akane falling over. Not exactly the most dignified thing for a descendant of the great Susano-O to do, but it did rather illustrate her surprise rather well.

"H-Half a million?!" Akane yelled. "How?! How is that possible?!"


"Well, a lot of the girls at Furinkan look up to you," Yuka said. "You always smash those perverts good when they try something, and lead our sports teams to victory more often than not."

"Yeah, but - "

"Also, I'd say about two thirds of the boys at all the local high schools have a big, big crush on you," Yuka nodded. "Yep, that makes sense. If it's been building up all this time without her spending any of it, then no wonder Akane has so much stored up."

"Th-that's still ridiculous!" Akane yelled. "You're telling me I have a lottery cheque handed to me on day one because people think I'm cute?! Ew, that's dirty money, do not want!"

"Ah, that's interesting," Susano-O continued. "It looks like a heck of a lot of it is coming from one boy in particular. Local martial artist. Thinks about you all the time. He believes in you quite a lot, it's quite remarkable."

This got Akane blushing a little bit. She knew who that was. Ranma, of course. That dummy! He always had trouble saying anything like that, but he always seemed to trust her when the chips were down. And now she had evidence that he -

"Guy called Tatewaki Kuno," Susano-O said. "Man, he's pretty hard into you. To the point I'd almost call him an extremist."

Now, the expression upon Akane's face was not a very pretty one. In fact, it was as if someone had quickly and violently sucked all the emotion out of her, and then smeared white paint over her features.

"It's one of those funny things, haha!" Susano-O said, removing his hand and stepping back, because for some reason he was sensing danger. "The truly insane often provide the most belief. I mean, that Ranma guy provides a much more reasonable - "

"Kuno, you idiot!" Akane yelled, her voice echoing around this lovely garden.

<hr>

At that very moment Tatewaki Kuno was kneeling in front of his posters of the pigtailed girl and Akane Tendo, meditating on which of them he would rather date first, and as always coming to the conclusion that he would definitely prefer to date them both at once.

Then, for no apparent reason, he was struck by a thunderbolt that tore through his house. The event was pretty odd, all truth told. And for some reason, he would later describe the thunderbolt as having the distinctive shape of a human fist, which he would insist was a dead ringer for the fearsome Akane Tendo.