So here you are, Ellanora. Reduced to this. Once a feared and mighty vampiress, who ruled Furinkan from the shadows. Your power, your might, your very will itself imposed upon the masses to make them take heed of your greatness. Now? You scurry off to the woods outside Furinkan in a desperate attempt to gain back that which you had once lost.
"I'll show her," she sniffed to herself while rooting around for a mushroom of the right size. The damned things were everywhere, but - She lay down on the dirt, pulled out a measuring tape that she'd acquired en route, and... "Fourteen inches! No, no, that won't do, that won't do at all..."
"I always knew you were easy, but needing more than fourteen inches to feel satisfied...?" asked the last voice she wanted to hear right now. Nodoka had found her, the bitch. That tomboyish, violent girl from her youth who had grown up to become the wife of the boy they'd both once quarrelled over. "Really now. This is such a mid-life crisis move."
"Huh! As if a beautiful eternal creature of the night has anything like a mid-life!" Elanora spat back. "Or maybe it's you that is suffering the mid-life crisis, hrm? Yes, what a peculiar thing to say, when you are the one who is pursuing a mighty vampiress all by -"
While she was speaking Nodoka was reaching into her kimono, pulling out a bag of rice and emptying it out onto the forest ground. Why that -
"One, two, three, four..." she began, picking the grains up as she went. Storing them in her hand, moving quickly, far quicker than a human ever could, but there were so many of them she didn't have a chance of easily finding them all!
"This won't bring you the happiness or respect you seek," Nodoka sighed wearily. "Honestly now, what do you expect will happen? That Genma shall regain his youth and vigour, and then divorce me to be with you? Or perhaps this time, you'll be able to turn me into one of your undead subordinates?"
"Ten, eleven - Do you think you can stop me? Twelve, thirteen, fourteen... You'll have to pick every mushroom in this forest, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen... And these things will grow on almost anything, given half a chance! You'll never get them all, not when a single spore can replenish... eighteen, nineteen..."
"How old were you looking to make him anyway?" Nodoka asked. "Twenty? Eighteen? Perhaps even sixteen again?"
... She did that on purpose. Ellanora's eye twitched menacingly as she emptied out the grains she had and started to count again from the beginning. This is why she never liked this girl! This mere mortal slip of a troublemaking girl! Oooh, Genma, why did you have to pick her?! Why Nodoka? Wouldn't you have been happier being an etternaly youthful vampire lord? Riches untold! Power beyond mere martial arts!
And the sex... Oh, the sex would have been truly divine!
...
Yeah, there can't be much doubt about what her priorities were here, it had been a while since a guy could get her motor going like Genma could in his youth. Hehehe... She was counting up even faster this time. Nodoka! Your time has come!
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Temptation surrounded her. Nodoka was more out of breath than she wanted to admit. Phew! She wasn't a spring chicken anymore. She wasn't quite as in shape as she had been in her youth. No real stamina to speak of. It was all she could manage to lean up against this tree and try to look cool and collected while she thought about what to do next.
Her nemesis would be functionally helpless for a few more minutes. The rice would keep her busy long enough for Nodoka to figure out something. But she was right. What was she going to do, exactly? If she moved to stake Elanora right now she'd likely move out of the way and continue counting. She was fast. She'd see Nodoka coming. Or hear her. Pick and burn every mushroom in the forest...? Not too likely. Looking around there were a lot of mushrooms of various size.
How did they work again...? Ah yes, of course. When consumed they made you revert to an age equivalent to their height in inches. An unusual quirk, when considering that inches were historically defined by the length of three grains of barley laid end to end. In a Japanese forest, no less. Quite the peculiar coincidence - though perhaps it wasn't an exact science, as truly measuring a person's age was a difficult thing to do at the best of times. After all, some people look older than they appear and others younger. Take the vampire counting away at her feet as one example. She was younger in appearance.
A lot younger.
Ridiculously, absurdly younger seeming than she appeared.
Once again Nodoka found herself pining for those wild and untamed days of youth. Could she...? Could she maybe have one of those mushrooms for herself? Well, why not? Ranma was a married man. No doubt grandchildren would be on the way soon. Why not make yourself a bit younger so you're more physically capable of helping play with them? Stay alive longer, too! Watch them grow into adults, watch them marry and have great grandchildren you could play with!
Why, look there. When Elanora had dropped her measuring tape to start counting, it had landed next to a mushroom which was a full sixteen inches. Sixteen inches, Nodoka. If you took that you'd be a little younger in appearance than Ranma and Akane were right now. You could resume your adventures from youth with them. Catch up on lost time.
She picked up that mushroom. Stared at it for a long time. Temptation surrounded her. Go ahead. Take back those days. In the moment you were frustrated and wanted it all to be over, but... The truth is, you enjoyed it all, didn't you? Yes. You felt relief when your more normal life started, but the truth is that you miss it. You want to go back to then, and in your hand...
No. No, she couldn't do that. Her time had passed. What she should be doing is living by example, and help Ranma and Akane adjust to their married life. Let them focus on their new family, help them adjust to the real world struggles that a life of adventure cannot -
"One thousand and thirty six!" Elanora excitedly announced, rising to her feet... and bumping right into Nodoka's back, making her lurch forward. "Hahaha! Alright, I need to figure out a way to counter this in future. I can't let that be any sort of continual weakness, it'll make me look like a real chump!"
Clang! It felt like someone had rung a bell inside Nodoka's heart. Oh no! Oh no! She'd swallowed the mushroom whole! All sixteen inches of it! Gosh she had a hell of a gag reflex - but that was hardly the point! Her body was already changing. Ah! She could feel the crow's feet on her face vanishing! She could feel her breasts firming up, and her skin becoming softer, younger, her body lost a few inches, and her hair... Oh gosh, how did her hair look!
She whirled around to face her nemesis, getting right in her face. Perhaps the teen hormones taking over rapidly, as she yelled - in a manner not entirely unlike Ranma-chan - "Oy! Do you mind not bumping into someone like that?! Watch where you're going, you slutty undead whore!"
Quite the mouth she had on her, huh? But, it was also weirdly refreshing. All of a sudden, she looked very much like Ranma's girl form, with longer and darker hair left flowing free down the back of her head.
Well then. It seemed that the choice had been taken out of her hands, hadn't it?
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