Love Springs Eternal - A Ranma 1/2 Commission from JW (Part 1)

Author's Notes: So, I started working on this commission back in August of 2021 - but depression made a mess of things, as it always does, and... well, long story short I just finished part 4 yesterday... Thankfully, JW has had the patience of a saint, and I'm hoping the next parts come more smoothly. In the meantime, I figured I'd start sharing with people what I've done so far.

I'll be upfront and say I'm a little nervous about how well I've done at keeping to the characters - especially since this fic occurs a couple years post-series, with characters that are of age (and married in Ranma and Akane's case, besides), and the fact that I wrote this part 3 years ago isn't helping... but... I've done my best, and I'd like to think the results speak for themselves.

So. Without further ado... Part 1

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Kodachi walked through the valley, dressed in a skintight green leotard that clung to her curves and showed off her well-toned figure. A heavy-looking barrel was strapped to her back, yet her footsteps were light and graceful as a gazelle’s as she happily strode toward her destination.

Of course, it helped that the barrel was still empty. It would be much more difficult to make the return journey, once it was full to the brim. But that didn’t bother Kodachi. In fact, her heart soared at the thought of it. Soon, she would have everything she needed to bring her darling Ranma willingly into her arms.

For so long, everyone in her life had told her to give up. Even her dear brother told her that her love was hopeless, in the light of Ranma and Akane’s marriage. He himself had capitulated on the matter of capturing Akane’s heart. That was fine, though. She didn’t need his help to break her love and that beastly woman apart. Not now that she knew Ranma’s secret.

That’s right. She now knew about the pigtailed girl. That redheaded woman of mystery, who shared a name with her darling Ranma, and who would often show up to steal him away from her. The one her dear, foolish brother had developed a crush on. The rival she herself hated with a passion. After years of trickery, the wool had finally been lifted from her eyes and the true identity of the feminine Ranma had finally been revealed to her. All thanks to her darling Ranma’s old master, Happosai, who told her about the Jensyukyo springs and their numerous curses.

Not that she’d believed Happosai at first. In fact, Kodachi vaguely recalled hitting him over the head with a club as punishment for wasting her time. But instead of getting angry, Happosai simply told her to hide. Then he dumped water on Ranma’s head - and low and behold, the redheaded Ranma appeared right before her dumbfounded eyes. Then Happosai poured hot water on the girl, and her darling Ranma had come back to her.

Of course, Kodachi hadn’t been entirely convinced just by that. But by the third repetition, around the time Ranma was really starting to lose his temper at the treatment, it all finally clicked into place. The countless times Ranma had disappeared, only to be replaced by a woman with the same name, finally made sense to her. They had been one and the same all along!

From there, Happosai had gone on to tell Kodachi the whole truth. She was informed that her darling Ranma had fallen into the cursed springs during a training accident. Ever since he had been working as hard as he could to hide this ugly truth from the world, to conceal this horrible condition from those he most cared about. He’d even gone so far as to leave Kodachi herself in the dark, no doubt ashamed of his feminine side. To think that he had been suffering by himself for so long - Kodachi wanted nothing more than to throw her arms around him and hold him close.

She no longer had to wonder why Ranma married that accursed gorilla of a woman. Akane was no doubt holding Ranma’s secret over his head, blackmailing him. Perhaps she was even emotionally abusing him, telling him that only she would accept someone with such a twisted secret. Surely Ranma was suffering every day under her torturous care. 

Not for much longer, though. Perhaps it suited Akane’s tastes to have a half-female husband, but Kodachi was quite certain she had no such fetish. And - at least in her own mind - she didn’t need to verbally abuse a man in order to keep him. If she ever worried about Ranma leaving her, she’d simply feed him some paralysis powder and perhaps attach a few balls and chains to his legs. She wouldn’t leverage a horrible curse to keep him trapped in a loveless marriage, as Akane had clearly done. And as she had neither need nor want of the curse, it was only obvious that she would work to remove it. That would break Akane’s hold on her darling Ranma, rid her of that horrible pig-tailed girl form, and make Ranma eternally grateful to her all in one brilliant move.

It was strange, though. She could understand why none of her other rivals had made a move like this, back when Ranma was still on the market - no doubt they had been fooled, the same as her, as to the nature of the two Ranmas- but you’d think that Ranma’s father, at the very least, would have gone to any lengths in order to break the curse and earn the boy his freedom. She would have to have a talk with Mr. Saotome when she returned. She wanted to be on good terms with her future father-in-law, of course, but the fact that he had allowed Ranma to get married to Akane under such circumstances needed to be addressed.

Well, there’d be time for all that after she made her victorious return with the solution to Ranma’s problems. Thankfully, Happosai had filled her in on everything she needed to do. She simply needed to hop on a plane to China, travel to the Jensyukyo springs, and find the Spring of Drowned Man. That would overwrite her darling Ranma’s curse, and free him from that dreadful Akane. And then he’d be so grateful to her for freeing him… Why, it was only a matter of whether he professed his undying love before their wedding day, or after their wedding night.

Thankfully Happosai had provided a map for her. Not only did it detail a path to the Jensyukyo springs, but one of the springs was even circled for her. It made things so simple, she had to wonder again why Mr. Saotome never bothered to cure his son. Did he care that little? She didn’t want to think such cruel thoughts about her future father-in-law, but it certainly felt that way to her.

Perhaps it didn’t matter in the end. If anything, shouldn’t she be grateful for his laziness? It was Mr. Saotome’s inaction that had opened up this path to possibility for Kodachi. If Ranma had been cured long ago he would of course never have married Akane, but that didn’t mean he would have married Kodachi instead. She knew that there were many suitors for his heart. And she knew, too, that she hadn’t secured his love. Not yet, at least.

But that was about to change. The long poles that ascended from the springs were already coming into sight. Supposedly martial artists would train atop those sticks, trying to balance themselves without falling into the cursed springs below. Kodachi wasn’t foolish enough to do such a thing, though. She wasn’t sure why anyone would. Instead, she made her way along the ground, navigating the miniature bodies of water until she had reached the space marked on her map. Then she undid the rope that secured the barrel to her back, letting it thud heavily upon the earth. Pulling off the barrel’s loose lid and dropping it on the ground, she tied her rope into a harness about the barrel and then eased it into the water of the spring. She was careful not to let so much as a droplet of liquid land on her, even as she fed the barrel into the water. Once it was half full with clear fluid it began to sink and was soon completely submerged into the spring.

With the barrel now undoubtedly filled, Kodachi took hold of the rope and tugged, pulling it taut. She felt something move beneath the water in response to her efforts and set her lips into a determined grin as she heaved again upon the rope. Hand over hand, pulling and tugging with all her might, she dragged the now full barrel back out of the water and onto dry land. It was filled to the brim with spring water now, and yet Kodachi was dry as a bone. No risk at all of the curse spreading to her.

She let the barrel drip dry beneath the hot sun for a while, still cautious of the water that had been removed from the spring. It wouldn’t do to fix Ranma’s problem only to end up in a similar situation herself. She didn’t know at all where the Spring of Drowned Girl was, after all, and she wasn’t going to waste time jumping in every spring until she found out. It took a while of waiting for the barrel to dry, but as she spent the duration imagining how she’d look in a white leotard, at her wedding, she thought it was time well spent.

Once she was satisfied that it was safe Kodachi stepped closer to the barrel, grabbing hold of the lid that she’d abandoned on the ground. She pushed it firmly into place against the top of the container, and then drew out a wooden mallet from her leotard to hammer it into place. From there, all she had to do was readjust the ropes and tie the barrel back onto her back.

The water-filled vessel was almost unbearably heavy. Walking with it was incomparable to journeying with an empty barrel on her back. She was forced to hunch over, and trudge forward, her every step thudding into the ground thanks to the extra weight. Although she started walking back toward town immediately, her pace was so slow with this weight on her back that it would likely take her several days. Still, it didn’t so much as occur to her to throw the barrel away, or even to get a smaller container. A bottle would probably do for changing Ranma back, but she refused to take that route. She was going to carry the whole barrel, just like Happosai had recommended. That way she could show off her devotion to Ranma, and be sure there was plenty to spare. Besides, for all she knew Ranma might need to actually bathe in this stuff for it to work on him. She wouldn’t want to make this journey twice.

So, instead, she made her way back at a snail’s pace. Her back ached from the weight, and her normally light steps were as heavy as lead. But the smile on her lips was sincere, and there was a lightness in her heart that hadn’t been there in years. Not since Ranma and Akane got married, and her world came crashing down.

Kodochi thought it was all over, back then. She’d thought Ranma had made a choice, and that his choice wasn’t her. She’d even started to believe that Ranma would never love her the way she wanted, no matter what she might do. For weeks she hadn’t been able to bring herself to put on makeup, or bake cookies, or even practice her rhythmic gymnastics, she’d been so depressed. Everyone talked like she’d recovered, since, but truthfully she’d never been the same.

But then Happosai revealed the truth. Now she knew Ranma was only with Akane because that horrible creature had chained him to her. But soon those chains would be torn from Akane’s grip, and unwound from her darling Ranma. Instead of being in Akane’s filthy hands, Kodachi’s darling Ranma would be in the gentle embrace of someone who loved him. They’d get married, and profess their love to each other with everyone watching. And even if it did start as simple gratitude, it would surely turn to love before long. 

She could already imagine the cake. Multi tiered white affair, with black roses decorating every layer. Flavored with vanilla and paralysis powder, Ranma’s first bite of it would bring the evening to a perfect close. She would bring his stiff body to bed with her, and they would have the most delightful night of either of their lives. Much better than anything Akane had ever given him.

She did wonder if she had enough paralysis powder for a whole wedding cake, though. Perhaps she’d buy more when she got home? After she delivered her darling Ranma the good news, of course. She had at least enough powder to last until then. And who knew? Maybe he’d be so happy at the gift that she wouldn’t even need the powder to freeze him stiff!

The thought caused a wide grin to spread across Kodachi’s lips, even as she took another heavy step forward, and then another after that. The burden on her back felt as light as her heart. So long as she had Ranma in her future, everything else would work out fine.

“Ohohohohoho. Just you wait, Ranma darling. I’m going to make you mine!”